Sounds of Change
by Haleine Delail
Summary: The Doctor and Martha, after blissful months of peace and love, are under fire again from music-wielding beings who wish to make their lives hell. After last time, they know the Doctor can end them, so this time their plan is one big loophole. It is brilliant and insidious, and may put them completely out of the Doctor's reach! Continues from "Adventures in Vengeance."
1. Prologue

**Happy Spring, my friends!**

 **Suffice it to say, I'm a music-lover, in particular, I get wrapped up in the lyrics of songs, and their meanings. If I hear a song with beautifully-rendered lyrics, I get inspired! And that's how these silly music fanfic stories keep coming about!** **Not one to let go of ideas very easily, I have a new offering that is actually ANOTHER installment in a series I began almost six years ago (not intending, at the time, for it to turn into a series)!**

 **This is another "song" story, in which the Doctor and Martha Jones have an adventure through music, and come to certain conclusions about themselves and the universe, by way of aptly-chosen songs and a little help from outside manipulation. The previous stories are as follows: Theatre of Nightmares, Jukebox of Regret, Tracks of Emptiness, Notes of Revelation, and Adventures in Vengeance. **

**If you wish to become better-versed in this weird world I've created, I would suggest reading Jukebox, Tracks, and Adventures. Especially the latter! If not, well, that's why there's a prologue here. It's a bit vague, but hopefully gives you just enough context to usher you into this story. Note, please, that the first part of the prologue. concerning the Ti'urb, is context from my other stories. The second part, with the Doffa priests and the thirty-four days of captivity, that's completely new, and serves as something of a set-up for the chapter to come...**

 **And credit where credit is due: songwriters Guy Garvey, Richard Jupp, Craig Potter, Mark Potter, Pete Turner, John Bucchino, Tim Rice, k.d. lang, and others still to be determined!**

 **Thanks for humoring me, and please enjoy! And don't forget to review!**

* * *

PROLOGUE

Their life was not like other people's.

They ran, they jumped, they travelled through time. They saved planets and entire civilisations, brought down despots, preserved or destroyed history as the situation dictated. The Doctor had been operating this way for centuries, with various friends coming in and out to offer assistance and companionship, most of them human, all of them brilliant.

Two and a half years ago (for them, anyway - more like eighteen months to the rest of the world) Martha Jones had come into his life, and the adventure continued. They ran and jumped as always, and then she more or less single-handedly brought an alien dictator to his knees through perseverance, dedication, and above all, love.

Soon thereafter, everything changed for them.

At that point, about six months ago, beings from the planet Ti'urb, the whole of which was literally _made of sound_ , had meddled in their lives to the point of nearly breaking them. They had taken the objects of their ire, namely the Doctor and his lovely Companion, and dropped them into various nightmarish scenarios, involving music. Projecting songs into fantasy worlds and intertwining them, and transporting their subjects into these fantasy pockets, they forced Martha to face her love for him head-on, then forced the Doctor to face his for her. Once they finally fell into one another, the Ti'urbs had stolen their voices, their primary means of communicating their feelings, just at that crucial time. When that hadn't worked (as our heroes found a decidedly non-language-based way of communicating their affection), they had tossed them into realities where were contained various stories of treachery told in song, in which their lives were put in danger, and their entire relationship, their love itself, was called into question.

And so, weary of their shenanigans, and desperate to extract Martha from a horrible fate, in which she would be forever captive within the consciousness of a Ti'urb being, the Doctor had tortured and unravelled the mind of one of the nastier Ti'urb operatives. He had threatened to destroy their entire planet with the flick of his sonic screwdriver, should this lot ever mess with them again. It had not been his finest hour, but most beings in the universe knew not to push the Doctor to the point of wrath unless they were ready to face it. The Ti'urbs had underestimated them both.

Granted, it had been one member of a particularly odious Ti-urbian family that had forced the Doctor, almost against his will, to get in touch with his love for Martha. For that, he was thankful. But ultimately, it had been a ruse to help the rest of the family make them miserable, in hopes of bringing about their undoing. After all, the more they loved, the more they had to lose.

But the "ruse" had proved effective enough to convince the Doctor himself - in that it hadn't really been much of a ruse at all. Or rather, it had severely backfired on the Ti'urb! He reckoned he hadn't had far to go, to be nudged into realising how wonderful she was, and how he so badly did not want to live without her. He realised suddenly how he craved her: her presence, her voice, her touch... everything about her...

...and how could he not have seen that she'd felt that way about him all along?

Well, it was all academic now, something they could almost laugh about.

* * *

One day recently, the Doctor had received a distress call. The seven High Priests of Doffa had been kidnapped, and the Doctor had gone on a rescue mission. He had foolishly reasoned that it would be a quick in-and-out sort of thing, so he hadn't brought Martha with him. Plus, she'd been on the graveyard shift for two weeks and hadn't really adjusted to it very well - she was perpetually sleep-deprived. But, he'd wound up captured, as tended to happen without his backup, and only had broken free because of the Doffans' brave plot to distract the kidnappers, while their militia squad blew up the back of the building that housed prisoners.

He had been captive for thirty-four days. He had not been lonely or abused, exactly - he had shared a cell with the seven Doffan priests, and had been adequately fed and allowed to bathe. Honestly, life could have been - and had been - much, much worse. It just meant that by the time he re-entered his TARDIS and set coordinates back to London, it had been over a month since he had seen Martha or spoken to her. For a new couple, a month was an eternity. Even when one half of the couple was nine centuries old.

From Martha's point of view, it had only been a few days - the Doctor had seen to that - and he had called her around four a.m., knowing she'd be a just a couple of short hours from finishing her rotation shift for the night.

"Hiya," he'd said.

"Oh, hi," she chirped. "Haven't heard from you in a few days - are you all right? Did everything go okay with the rescue?"

"Got captured. Now I'm... well, less-captured." His tone was light.

"Okay, well, less-captured is better than more-captured," she said uneasily.

"I'll tell you about it later."

"It sounds like you're healthier-than-dead, so I'll try to focus on that, and not freak out too much," she decided.

"Good, because I'm making you breakfast," he said. "There will be no freaking out at breakfast."

"Oh, okay! Thanks. I'll be done here around six."

"Six it is. I'm headed to the market in a bit - I found one in Westminster that opens at five, that has the ingredients I want. Do you like butternut squash and truffle oil?"

"Truffle oil? Why so fancy?"

"I dunno, I guess I just want to make it special," he said. "It's been over a month since I've seen you."

"Over a month?"

"Yeah. I came back early, so you wouldn't worry about me too much. I know it's cheating, but..."

"Over a month?" she repeated.

He sighed. "Yeah. It was rough. I mean, the conditions were all right, and there were some nice blokes to talk to but... blimey, I'd forgotten how long a month can be when you're..."

She giggled. "What?"

"You know," he said, like a child.

"In love?" she asked, teasingly.

"Yes. And under constant surveillance, and sharing a room with seven men. Who are celibate, by the way. Actually, forget I said that last part. That has nothing to do with anything, other than... well, they just don't understand."

"Are you feeling a bit tightly-wound?" she chuckled.

"Oi! What's with the mocking? It's easy to poke fun when it's only been a few days! I could have made you wait the whole thirty-four days as well!"

She laughed. "All right, I withdraw my taunting. I am very happy that you're all right and I will look forward to seeing you, and to tasting and _hearing_ what you have prepared for me."

"You will indeed enjoy the auditory confection I have chosen to accompany the food. I believe I have found the perfect piece."

"Do I get a hint?"

"No," he told her. "It's a surprise."

"Okay, fine, spoilsport," she said. "I have to get back to work. See you a little after six. Love you."

"Love you too."


	2. One Day Like This

**Yay, here's chapter 2 at last. Let's just say, our lovers don't like to waste time. Well, what Time Lord would?**

* * *

 **ONE DAY LIKE THIS**

A Time Lord travelling with a non-Time-Lord companion has certain inherent responsibilities. Not exposing him or her too much to his or her home planet's, and home culture's future, is one of the big ones. To expose that companion to major developments of history, before their time, was never a "good" thing, per se.

But it usually didn't stop the Doctor.

However, these days, his life with Martha had become so "normal," settled, at least by his standards, it simply felt wrong even just to do something as innocuous as play a song from a time period that, for Martha, would be considered _the future_. It was tempting to think that he had all of human history from which to chose, but truly, he only had up to 2008! The world of recorded music after that point was so broad and vast, it was mind-boggling! He had an idea that Martha would enjoy it, if for nothing but the novelty, and the fact that he had chosen it for her. But, there was something genuine about keeping this morning's music in Martha's time period. It was a sound and sensibility she could relate to - part of what made her, frankly, human.

Such were his thoughts as he put the finishing touches on a potato-sausage hash, tasted it, marvelled at his own culinary genius, then turned off the burner. In the oven, there was a butternut squash frittata with truffle oil, just about ready to come out, so he leaned against the counter to wait.

When their relationship was brand-new, they had both made a promise to Martha's mother that her romance with a time-hopping adventurer would not interfere with her finishing medical school. She only had one summer session of rotations, then a semester left to go, and she would be finished. And so, the Doctor had agreed to make London his home-base, only travel when necessary, and more or less settle down until Christmas or so.

Weirdly, Martha had said that she didn't feel ready for cohabitation, in spite of the year they had spent living in the TARDIS together _before_ they were sleeping together. But she had insisted that their first year travelling in the TARDIS had been a more innocent time and situation, and that living with a "boyfriend" was different. So, he parked the TARDIS in a lovely corner of Hyde Park and left it there most of the time. Though, like a lot of couples who did not yet live-in, they still spent more nights together than not, had keys to each others' abodes and kept basic amenities in one another's bathrooms and wardrobes. But the point was, she had her space, and he had his.

He looked to his left. At the end of the narrow kitchen, there was a tall window that looked out on treed-in area, a little corner of a back courtyard that Martha's new flat shared with five other flats. Bright green trees on a summer morning, even in an overcast London, was quite a sight for very sore eyes, after the long month he had had as a prisoner alongside the Doffan Priests.

* * *

The Doctor was snapped out of his reverie by the oven going _ping_ , signalling that the frittata was ready. He checked the clock - it was 6:05. Martha would be home anytime now.

He opened the back door. Her little patio consisted of about thirty square-feet of concrete, mostly (but not entirely) secluded by trees, with a little round iron table for two. He set the table, then stepped back inside and used the sonic screwdriver to rig Martha's stereo system to play the song of choice on-cue, picked from the summer of '08 repertoire.

He smiled, remembering, as he often did, that their relationship had begun with, and been tested by, music.

From there, the two of them had developed a little tradition, since their relationship had revolved so strongly around songs. Their tradition consisted of, well... carrying on that tradition. They had started with mix-CD's and playlists of love songs, but had graduated to something a bit more refined, and a bit less time-consuming.

These days, they chose for one another only one song at a time, for certain occasions, appropriate to their situation, and life as a pair. A pair of lovers, of travellers, of people with worries... Once in a while, one of them would simply hit "play," and music would fill their air for a few minutes, with a song specially-selected to inspire, or bring them closer. Their world would stop just for a little while, as they experienced it together. There were songs to motivate them for the open road and unknown prospects for adventure. There were songs that were good before a run - that is to say, a dangerous run, with monsters and explosions. Of course, there were songs for cogitating and investigating, but the most common selections were made for dinners together, and lovemaking.

The Doctor reckoned it wasn't technically dinner, but it was the meal they were having at the end of her "day" at work, so it would have to do. Besides, the song dictated a much brighter setting than an austere, candlelit dining room.

* * *

Martha walked in at 6:21, and Mozart's _Eine kleine Nachmusik_ was playing, though she knew this was not the Doctor's special song selection. It was merely meant to be ambient music for a gourmet breakfast.

"Hello," she said, stepping onto the patio in her doctorly clothes.

Mimosas were poured, sausage hash had been spooned, the frittata steamed on the plates, and the Doctor was just now arranging the giant strawberries on the sides.

"Hello there," he said with a smile.

"Let me change into something a bit less sweaty, and I'll be right back."

Two minutes later, wearing a pair of light linen drawstring trousers and spaghetti-strap pyjama top, she slid into a chair across from him, and they enjoyed classical music and a lovingly-prepared meal. The Doctor regaled her of the tale of being captured and spending thirty-four days trying, and failing, to plan an escape.

"The Doffan Priests were interesting blokes," he shrugged. "There was always something new to discuss, when they weren't in their prayer circle. The food was... well, terrible, but at least there _was_ food. Really, the only hardship was being away from you."

He said this with such a big smile, Martha almost took it as a joke. She decided to respond with whimsy. "Well, thank God that's over," she said. "Honestly, I _am_ delightful."

They both laughed at this, and with that, Martha took the last bite of her breakfast, and the last swallow of her Mimosa. The Doctor had been finished for a few minutes.

And as if on cue, the clouds parted a bit, and the sun was allowed to shine.

"Sun in London. Well, I'm going to take that as a sign," the Doctor said. He pointed the sonic screwdriver through the open door, at the sound system.

Suddenly, a tinkling piano could be heard, playing a very quick arpeggio, then, a big melody took over. A seven-note cadence, grandiose and ambitious, played by what sounded like the entire string section of an orchestra, filled the air. Martha smiled, and the musical phrase repeated itself. It immediately made her feel bright and refreshed somehow.

On the third play, the phrase was supported by a full-scale, rock-and-roll backing, complete with bass guitars and heavy drums. It was an extremely satisfying piece to listen to, already. It felt like it really was coming from someone's heart, from deep inside. Every space in the song was filled with something bright.

As the drums began, the Doctor stood and held out his hand, and Martha took it. They slow-danced a bit, right there on the patio, knowing full well that the neighbourhood could probably hear the music, and that they could be partially seen through the trees, if anyone decided to walk through the courtyard.

A man's smoky voice began to croon:

 _Drinking in the morning sun...  
_ _Blinking in the morning sun...  
_ _Shaking off a heavy one,  
_ _Heavy like a loaded gun..._

 _What made me behave that way?  
_ _Using words I never say?  
_ _I can only think it must be love.  
_ _Oh, anyway, it's looking like a beautiful day!_

An interval here was heavily emphasised with strings, and did not exactly lend itself to slow dancing, but that didn't stop the Doctor and his Companion. With this, the Doctor bowed his head a bit, which allowed Martha to crane up and run her lips along his jaw. She sighed a bit, too, so that he could listen to her being happy.

 _Someone tell me how I feel!  
_ _It's silly wrong but vivid right!  
_ _Oh, kiss me like the final meal,  
_ _Yeah, kiss me like we die tonight!_

The Doctor pulled away for just a moment, then he took her cheeks and neck in his two large hands and as the song commanded, kissed her hard, kissed her just as he would, if he hadn't seen her in over a month. She wrapped her arms round his chest, and neither of them would let go, as the song escalated, the man's voice became passionate and declarative...

 _'Cause holy cow, I love your eyes!  
_ _And only now I see the light!  
_ _Yeah, lying with you half-awake  
_ _Oh, anyway, it's looking like a beautiful day!_

Their lips clung, as did their arms. From somewhere in the courtyard, they heard simultaneously the familiar _clink_ of a dog's collar and tags, and its owner's high-pitched voice, chiding, "Oi! Get a room!"

They both burst out laughing as they pulled apart, and Martha grabbed the Doctor's hand and pulled him through the door. They never saw their scolder, nor did they care about who she was...

As if now living along with the heavy string interval, the two of them stumbled into the flat, kicking the door shut.

 _When my face is chamois-creased,  
_ _If you think I winked, I did.  
_ _Laugh politely at repeats,  
_ _Yeah, kiss me when my lips are thin._

She threw her arms round his neck, and then threw herself back onto the sofa, bringing him down on top of her. His lips pressed hard against hers, his tongue pressed into her mouth, and hers pressed back.

 _'Cause holy cow, I love your eyes!  
_ _And only now I see the light!  
_ _Yeah, lying with you half-awake,  
_ _Stumbling over what to say,  
_ _Well, anyway, it's looking like a beautiful day!_

Those heavy strings seemed to stir something, and drive them forward and into each other. The Doctor knelt on the floor, and grasped her linen trousers at the hips, pulling them, and her knickers, down urgently toward her feet. She kicked them off, then slid off the sofa and knelt with him on the plush white rug. She hastily unbuttoned his suit coat, which he tore off and threw aside with her trousers. Next, she pulled the tie just loose enough to rip over his head and toss away as well. Then she went for the shirt buttons.

"No," he growled, grabbing her wrist, his whole demeanor having flipped over, into something heavy and insistent. "I have to have you _now._ "

She melted on the inside, just a little, with hearing him say those words. She grasped his waistband and nearly pulled the stitches out of the hook, trying to get it open. Shaking fingers pulled down the zip, and from there, she arranged herself on the rug, on her back. He clearly was in no mood for preamble this morning, nor any takeover efforts on her part, which she might ordinarily be inclined to commit, in this situation. And all of that was fine with her. Sometimes just _this,_ right now, simple _lust_ was the purest thing she could think of.

The song had gone into a repetitive refrain.

 _So throw those curtains wide -  
_ _One day like this a year will see me right!_

He tugged himself free of any fabric constraints and descended upon her. Having nearly completely let go of all self-control, he thrust fully into her in one smooth stroke, and one very deep moan. He shut his eyes tight, bracing against the impact, and pressed his forehead into the rug beside her head, hissing an expletive.

"All right?" she managed to croak.

"Can't see straight," he half-moaned. As an afterthought, he whispered, as much to himself as to her, "Thirty-four days." Then he pushed himself back up to look down at her. He seemed to blink away some blurs and straight away, began pressing her into the soft white beneath her, again, then again...

Pulling back and pushing forward as though nothing else mattered, after another minute, he whispered, nearly groaned, "God, I might have forgot how good this feels." With the comment, he pushed into her a bit harder. He was testing his body and hers for those little explosions of pleasure, looking to incite bursts of breathy shrieks, and succeeding. He breathed into her hair and neck, nipped at her and whispered her name. His voice was low and private, just millimetres from her ear.

She was the only being in the universe who could hear him or feel him.

His words, having come forth in the heat of the moment, echoed in her mind, as something bubbling from the depths of the Doctor, the most honest, incendiary parts of him...

And the music, the beat, propelled them both...

 _Throw those curtains wide -  
_ _One day like this a year will see me right!  
_

 _Throw those curtains wide -  
_ _One day like this..._

* * *

 **Oh, and FYI, we're not finished yet with the juicy bits! ;-)**

 **"One Day Like This" is by the band Elbow. It is gorgeous. Passionate. Highly recommended.**


	3. This Moment

**So, as I said, the juicy bits were not finished. You may recall our heroes in mid-romp at the end of the previous chapter, after a long absence from one another (at least from the Doctor's point of view). Passion is the word of the morning.**

 **However, all is not right with the world, as you will see.**

* * *

THIS MOMENT

The Doctor's moods had always had the effect, sometimes annoyingly so, of reflecting upon her. If he was annoyed, so was she. If he was in pain, she was in pain. If he was elated, she usually was, as well, or would soon be.

And of course, when he was fiercely crashing through the feelings that come with losing oneself in passion and love, after being away for more than a month, she got completely pulled along in the undertow. For her, it had only been about three days since she'd last seen him, and her _need_ for him did not match his for her, not at this moment.

But that was need. _Desire_ was a different story.

Those dark eyes, in their intensity, could sting, melt her. When she knew that there was a powder keg in him, it was hard not to anticipate an explosion, hard not to spark it with her own fire. As much as she would have liked to take charge, and be the one to press _his_ back into the soft rug, she simply let him have her. She was lost in the cloud of _thirty four days without you_ , and this one perfect day, this one perfect moment...

And in that moment, in all of those moments, leading up to the _dénouement_ , as it were, she felt differently than she ever had. Pleasure flowed through her, as it always did, but there was something else rising in her as well. Something was clawing at her, almost as though a realisation of some sort were trying to find its way in. _What is that?_ she wondered vaguely, through the din of her body being coaxed powerfully through colours and bright lights and fireworks. What unknowable sensation was this? Then she felt almost as though her fingers, toes, hands and feet were vibrating. Was it a stroke? Was it something to do with pleasure centres and pressure points? Was the Doctor's non-humanness doing something to her, in his forceful lovemaking?

"Doctor, I feel..." she tried, knowing that it was a long shot even to wonder if he would hear her, as long as her voice remained so thin and breathy...

But nearly as quickly as it began, it was gone. The vibrating stopped, and whatever presence was clawing at her mind seemed to slink away.

Almost as though it retreated as soon as she became aware of it.

 _It was nothing, it was nothing,_ she told herself, as she turned her attention back to the moment. The only thing in her mind, and the only sensation against her skin, was him. His voice whispering, his breath, the sounds of him in pleasure, were all that she could hear.

And then everything else went out the window, because she started the familiar slow climb toward total release. Nothing else in the human experience could quite so resolutely root one's consciousness in the here and now. Her body practically changed texture, as everything went rigid and began to push back, and she began to feel fuel rising inside.

The Doctor's movements, in spite of their urgency, in spite of their quickness, were perfect - they virtually always were. Something in his rhythm and hers, when in concert, just _worked_ ; either that, or he'd lied to her when he'd said he couldn't read her mind.

It was _right_. And she was reminded of this once again, when the slow climb became a sprint, and suddenly, she found herself bursting, clawing at the carpet, coming quite suddenly...

...but also experiencing something, once again, that she had never felt before. Her body was buzzing - not in the usual way. Alongside the waves of perfect, liquid catharsis, there seemed to be something insinuating itself in her being. It felt like the explosion radiating off of her was attracting a different kind of energy, something living and breathing and strange...

Though it did not stop her from feeling deliciously shattered, flooded with fire. She cried out, and let go of those qualms.

Then, within a few seconds, right in her ear, a groan, a breath, words emitted almost without his knowing: "Martha, I can't hold back."

"Why on Earth would you?" she asked as her own explosion began to die down, and euphoria set in.

And no foreign sensation could stop her from feeling powerful and sated when he came along behind her, inside her. She heard every strained breath, every meted-out moan and felt the rug under her head bunch up while he braced himself with handfuls of it.

Tremors were surging through her, both familiar and new, but she was able to put out of her mind the "new" ones, in order to enjoy the pleasant ones. And as he threw himself to his left and collapsed beside her, panting, she had nearly no conscious memory of the "new" sensation.

* * *

Lying on her side, with a wonderful view of the bottom of the sofa, she felt ludicrously content. His body was pressed against her back, his arm was draped over her waist, and she could hear his breathing returning to normal.

She closed her eyes, and almost dozed for a moment... but then there was music. A simple, sober, yet somehow also ethereal, piano solo was followed by a woman's voice...

 _This moment, perfect, golden,  
_ _Grasp it, see it.  
_ _This moment, laughing, happy,  
_ _Feel it, be it._

 _Curve of face, warmth of hands,  
_ _Butterfly  
_ _Pinned in place when it lands  
_ _Try, try..._

 _This moment, ripened, bursting,  
_ _Taste it, name it.  
_ _This moment, precious, fleeting,  
_ _Catch it, frame it._

The gentle lilt of the song reflected perfectly how she felt just now. She particularly liked the words "ripened," and "bursting," as descriptors. She marvelled as she often did at the Doctor's uncanny ability to choose the perfect music for the moment.

He must indeed have been anticipating an incendiary romp with her - he'd planned music for before _and_ after! She smiled to herself.

 _Curve of moon, warmth of air,  
_ _Willow bough...  
_ _Winter's soon, be aware!  
_ _Now, how?_

Suddenly the singer's voice was stronger, higher and the song took a decided turn. The piano ran to _forte_ , and the tone of the singing became urgent...

 _This sadness, aching, reaching,  
_ _Looking on  
_ _At this moment, present, distant  
_ _Shining bubble,  
_ _Touch it, lose it_

 _Happy, laughing, perfect, golden,  
_ _Gone._

Martha's private smile became a frown. Of course these moments were fleeting, but did she really need a reminder? Did a woman who was less than three per cent the age of the man she loved, really need him to tell her how ephemeral happiness could be? Though she had never experienced the long, long life of a Time Lord herself, and never would, she was painfully aware of how she must be a blip in his life.

But what she felt was confusion. She could not find it within herself to be irritated.

"Gone?" she said.

"Mm?" he asked, as though he'd been dozing a bit himself.

"Perfect, golden... gone?"

"What are you on about?" he said evenly.

"The song."

"What song?"

"The one you just played. Why did you choose that? I loved the first half, but the second half was a bit..."

"I have no idea what you're saying."

"The song, Doctor," she said sitting up. _Now_ she was irritated. "You played a song. It ended not ten seconds ago!"

"I didn't play a song, Martha."

"Get off," she sighed. "I just heard it."

"You heard a song?"

"Yes!"

"Just now? Since we've just been lying here?"

"Yes! Didn't you choose it?"

"No. And Martha, there was no music. Not since the Elbow song ended, but that was when we were still..."

"What?" she shouted, getting to her feet, and hastily looking for her linen trousers. He also stood up and put his own trousers back together, then searched for his jacket and tie. "Doctor, please tell me you're just mucking about."

"I'm not," he said. "I swear to you, I heard no music! And I certainly didn't initiate any."

"Then what the hell did I hear?"

"I have no idea," he said, shrugging. "It must've been your imagination."

"My imagination? That's the best you can do?"

"Well, I don't know what else to tell you!"

"It was a song I'd never heard before, Doctor, and a voice I'd never heard before," she insisted, hands on her hips, properly annoyed/afraid now. "How am I just going to _imagine_ an entire song, in a made-up voice, and not realise I'm imagining it?"

He sighed, buttoned his jacket and shoved his hands in his pockets. He scowled and contemplated her for a few moments.

"How did it go?"

"Erm..." she closed her eyes and tried to remember. She sang a few lines. " _This moment, perfect, idyllic... la-la, la-la..._ _ripened, bursting... say it, name it, own it..._ or something like that."

"And it ended with... what did you say? Perfect, golden... gone?"

"Yeah! The whole second half of the song was about how it's all going to collapse soon. This perfection, the bubble, the... happiness." She frowned back at him. "Doctor, what do you think? Please tell me what you're thinking! Why are you frowning at me like that?"

He took a deep, slow breath. "It was all in your head - which is not to say it wasn't real."

"Great. I don't even know what that means."

"There's a slight chance that maybe the TARDIS put it in there," he said. "The only being, other than maybe me, with whom you have any kind of psychic connection like that, is the TARDIS. So before we freak out, we ought to check with her first."

"Freak out? We should freak out?"

"No, I said we should check with the TARDIS first, all right?"

"Oh God," she sighed. "Okay. Okay."

"Just trust me," he said, holding out his arm for her. She fell against him with fear in her eyes. "Let's go talk to her. We'll hold out hope that she's the one screwing with your mind. Or maybe she got her wires crossed somehow."

"Wires crossed? To whom would she have _meant_ to send a cryptic song about shattered happiness?"

"I don't know," he said. "That's why we're going to ask her."


	4. The Doctor's Bluff

**And now, our heroes go into investigative mode...**

* * *

THE DOCTOR'S BLUFF

They walked to Hyde Park, and the TARDIS was where he had left it, earlier that morning when he had arrived back from his stint in captivity with the Doffan clerics. It was in his favourite spot in the park, where locals and tourists alike tended to stop and observe birds.

The Doctor unlocked and opened the door, and gestured for Martha to enter. She did.

After a few seconds, he was still standing at the door, and she was on the platform.

"Well?" he asked.

"Well, what?" she wondered.

"You're not getting anything are you?"

" _Getting_ anything? Like what?"

"Like a message inside your mind from the TARDIS," he said. He leaned forward and said very pointedly to the Time Rotor, "Like maybe an _apology!_ "

There was silence while Martha looked back and forth between the Doctor and the Time Rotor.

Then, "This is stupid," he breathed, coming up the ramp. "If the TARDIS were communicating with you, I'd know it."

He approached the console and pulled the screen toward himself, and began typing commands.

"Can you sing a little of that song again?" he asked Martha. "Maybe I can find it in the TARDIS' data banks... maybe she sent it to you, maybe she didn't. But if she didn't, maybe she intercepted it... or something..."

"Ok, erm..." Martha closed her eyes and took a deep breath. She gave herself a moment to think, then she opened her mouth and sweetly sang:

 _This moment, perfect, golden,  
_ _Grasp it, see it.  
_ _This moment, laughing, happy,  
_ _Feel it, be it._

 _Curve of face, warmth of hands,  
_ _Butterfly  
_ _Pinned in place when it lands  
_ _Try, try..._

 _This moment, ripened, bursting,  
_ _Taste it, name it.  
_ _This moment, precious, fleeting,  
_ _Catch it, frame it._

 _Curve of moon, warmth of air,  
_ _Willow bough...  
_ _Winter's soon, be aware!  
_ _Now, how?_

And just as the other singer's had, Martha's voice escalated. Still with her eyes closed, she gave a full- scale belt, straight from the diaphragm.

 _This sadness, aching, reaching,  
_ _Looking on  
_ _At this moment, present, distant.  
_ _Shining bubble,  
_ _Touch it, lose it_

 _Happy, laughing, perfect, golden,  
_ _Gone._

She opened her eyes and looked at the Doctor expectantly. "Well?"

"Wow," he said, his eyebrows raised.

"Wow, what?"

"You can sing."

"Yeah," she sighed. "Though I never much cared to."

His brow furrowed in contemplation. "Not only that, you just sang it all the way through, with no hiccups or correction. I mean, the song isn't familiar to me, but I'd wager that you remembered it verbatim."

"So?"

"So, half an hour ago when I asked, you sang a few bars a bit clumsily, with a bit of 'la-la-la' thrown in, then said 'or something like that'. Either you were underperforming then, or you've developed a retroactive eidetic memory. In the last thirty minutes."

Martha threw up her hands. "Well, I don't know what to tell you, Doctor. It was a poignant song."

"Yeah, not _that_ poignant."

He typed in some commands, and waited for results.

"The TARDIS recognises the song," he said. "It's called _This Moment_ , written by John Bucchino, and the most popular recording is by someone called Kristin Chenoweth. Both Americans. However, the TARDIS did not send it to you, nor did she intercept it coming from anywhere else."

"Great," Martha sighed, trudging her way over to the passenger's chair. "So I'm memorising my hallucinations now. What a useful skill."

He frowned at her contemplatively for a few moments. She could practically see the wheels turning. Then he said, "Not _hearing_ , exactly. You're experiencing cerebral input from an outside source."

"How is that different? It's still hallucinations. It's still messing with my mind."

"We'll work it out," he assured her.

She crossed her arms over her chest, and placed her weight on one hip. She looked at him for a few seconds, willing him to notice her irritation. But he did not.

So she said, "Doctor, I'm not stupid. I heard _a song_ that no-one else could hear. It's happened before! We both know what's causing this - why are you acting like you have no idea?"

He stared at the floor and put his hands in his pockets. He leaned against the console and crossed one ankle over the other. "I don't know. To protect you, I suppose."

"Well, stop it," she commanded.

He frowned uncomfortably. "Sorry."

She began to pace. "I thought we were through with that lot!"

"I did too," he said, pulling one hand down over his face. "I thought I saw to that."

"Maybe they just didn't believe you."

Martha stopped and faced the Doctor squarely. They made intense eye-contact and thought back to last when they had last met the Ti'urb. They had materialised the TARDIS before a planetary council of some sort, and returned the alien Vancheré, the one who had tossed the two of them into full song-scenarios, utterly uprooting their lives, to his home. He had put the Doctor and Martha in the line of fire between the Brits and the Americans, in the War of Independence. He had tried to drown the Doctor on a fishing boat, then have him murdered by a pissed-off Spaniard with a lead pipe. He tried to break them up. And when all else failed, he tried to make Martha, literally, a prisoner of his private world of sound. He had tried to force her down into his mind, into his subconscious, where even the Doctor would not be able to retrieve her.

When all was said and done, Vancheré, who had come from a world made of sound, had had his wits thoroughly undone by the sonic screwdriver. The Doctor had stood before the council, brandished the sonic, and announced with a steely gaze that had chilled Martha to the very bone, "If anyone from this planet comes near, or uses any kind of manipulation anywhere within a four-hundred light-year vicinity of the Earth or anyone I care about, there will be consequences. I unravelled the mind of one of you with one tiny flick of a sonic screwdriver, and it took two minutes, if that. And in a world made of sound, that is just the tip of the iceberg of the damage I could do."

And then he'd laid a great big bluff on them. "I do not like killing, and I abhor genocide, destruction of worlds, and all things of that ilk. But if Ti'urb pushes me to the end of my rope one more time, I will not rise above it. Do _not_ come near me nor Miss Jones ever, ever again. I will _not_ show the kind of consideration to you that I have shown to Vancheré." His voice and manner had been cold and utterly convincing, even if he said so himself.

These days, the Doctor, as Martha had known, did not have the constitution to commit such a crime. Plus, he could never unravel an entire world with just one sonic screwdriver. In theory, it was possible, but an instrument the size of the one he kept in his breast pocket would take thousands of years to fully dismantle all of Ti'urb. Anyone would be hard-pressed to take that long to smite their enemy, without the enemy noticing and retaliating.

And now, it seemed as though the Ti'urb realised it had been a bluff.

"Well, maybe they're just not as daft as they seem," said the Doctor.

"But what you had done to Vancheré... that should have scared the hell out of them," she commented. "Do you think they'd have instruments to tell exactly what happened to him, and how?"

"I imagine they would," he said. "They'd be able to tell what sort of sonic technology did the damage. If not, they really should. They're a world made of sound, for God's sake."

There was a long silence, then something occurred to Martha. "Doctor, when we stood in front of that council, that little spokes-alien guy knew you."

"He knew who I was, yeah. The TARDIS gives me away sometimes."

"So, if they know what a Time Lord is, and they can trace your sonic manipulation..."

"I think I see what you're getting at," he told her, thinking. "So, are you saying that they _would_ , then, believe I could do it? Or do you think they would they dismiss it as the bluff that it was?"

"I think they would assume it was a bluff," she said. "If they're familiar with Time Lords, they might know that you're the only one."

The Doctor stared past her with a squint. It was a meaningful squint - Martha knew that when she saw it.

"What?" she wondered.

"Unless they did their homework."

"What do you mean?"

"I'll show you. May I borrow your mobile phone?"

"Sure," she said, pulling the gadget from her back pocket.

He flipped it open, aimed the sonic at it, then held it to his ear. "It's ringing," he whispered to her.

"Who ware you phoning?"

"Carax!" he shouted. "How are you? What do you mean, who is this? It's the Doctor! Yeah - three or four times since then. I can't really sing very well anymore, but I've got better fashion-sense. Anyway... I have a favour to ask."

* * *

 **Hope you're enjoying this. It should go without saying, if you're reading, please leave a review!**


	5. The Volume

**This is weird and gimmicky, but kind of needed. :-) In it is a hearty nod to one of my favorite books, "Shadow of the Wind."**

 **If you read, please review!**

* * *

THE VOLUME

When the TARDIS landed, Martha asked, "Where are we?"

"Barcelona."

"The planet?"

"The city. Spain. Earth. Your neck of the woods. Well, sort of."

"Spain? Again? Why?"

He smiled and took her hand. They stepped out into a darkened, dusty room that looked like it had been carved out of stone a thousand years before, and then stuffed full of books. Before them, stood a man, a bit shorter than the Doctor. He wore an old-fashioned, tan, three-piece suit, and round wire-rimmed glasses. His head was completely devoid of hair, and on his face, he wore a slight smirk.

The Doctor moved forward, as did the man, and the two embraced.

"Good to see you, my friend," said the man with a restrained, but happy, smile. In Martha's mind, he spoke English of course, but there was a little hint of Spanish accent.

"And you," said the Doctor. "Carax, this is Martha Jones."

Carax took her hand in both of his, and granted her the same smile. "A pleasure, I'm sure."

She smiled back, and nodded in agreement.

"Are you ready, sir? Shall we waste no time?" Carax asked, the smirk returning, as he let go of Martha's hand and turned to the Doctor.

"I am ready, s _eñor,_ " the Doctor responded. "I'm not sure that we can afford to waste time."

Carax motioned for them to follow. To the right there was a short row of shelves, laden with dusty books stacked to the ceiling. They walked past it, and found themselves at the top of a staircase that went at least the equivalent of two full storeys down.

The area below was massive, and also seemed stuffed to the gills with books. As she walked down the stairs, here and there, she could see people sitting reading, or browsing the shelves.

"What is this, a library?" Martha whispered.

"That's the way people use it, with their greasy hands and their tight wallets," Carax said, with a hint of bitterness. "But it's a shop. The largest used and vintage book shop in the city."

"It's brilliant," she told him.

" _Gracias,_ " said Carax.

"Oh, you haven't seen the brilliant part yet," the Doctor told her, with an eyebrow flutter.

When they reached the lower floor, Carax led them across the space, between shelves, to a stone wall. He and the Doctor faced it, while Martha stood between them and looked back and forth with confusion. Carax reached out and put his hand on Martha's shoulder with his left hand, and the Doctor did the same with his right. Carax then extended his right hand and pressed his palm against the wall.

A purple swirl appeared around his hand, then grew bigger and bigger, until it was large enough for the three of them to walk through. The wall and the swirl seemed to be coming closer, as Carax's arm began to disappear into it, without his having to move forward. Suddenly, Martha felt enveloped in the purple swirl, and she could no longer see nor hear anything around her. Reassuringly, however, she felt the Doctor's hand on her shoulder - he squeezed, just to let her know he was still there.

In a matter of seconds, the swirl stopped, and they were in a different room. This room was remarkably similar, though polar opposite. The shelves were stark and white, with a subtle silver grid pattern embedded, and the lighting, in her world, would have been called fluorescent. All around them, there were what looked like shelves piled high with books, but the books had a sterile quality to them. They all appeared to be hard plastic.

And while massive, at least the walls of the Barcelona book shop could be discerned - the shop's limits were apparent. This room, however, seemed to go on forever. Martha could see no end in any direction, except behind her.

"Now this, Miss Jones, is a library," said Carax with a big smile.

"Wow," she replied, as she could think of no proper words. She felt frozen in place, as though if she moved at all, her bearings would be completely lost, and she would become entrenched in the alien labyrinth. "Erm, we're not on Earth anymore are we?"

"Well, no," the Doctor said. "We're in a pocket dimension. The only way in or out is through that swirling purple portal. Not even the TARDIS can materialise in here."

"Wow," she repeated.

"So, you seek knowledge of the Ti'urb," said Carax.

"Sort of," said the Doctor. "I want to know if the Ti'urb have been in here nosing about, maybe researching the Time Lords."

Carax seemed surprised. "Oh! Interesting. Can you share with me why?"

"Well, they seem to enjoy messing with us, and the last time they did, I threatened them. Like, a lot. I said I could destroy their planet with my sonic screwdriver."

Carax laughed out loud. "Oh, Doctor."

"Yeah, I know," the Doctor sighed. "But it felt like they believed me at the time!"

"The Ti'urb are notoriously xenophobic and intolerant," said Carax. "Not long in the knowledge-of-other-cultures department. It's not likely they knew much about the Time Lords when you arrived there... so maybe you're right."

"They recognised the TARDIS well enough," Martha offered.

"Well, all the more reason why they might believe him," Carax told her. "He has quite the reputation, as you must already realise."

"I do realise."

"Aren't you glad he's on our side?" Carax smirked.

"Very," said Martha, with a smirk of her own.

"Anyway," the Doctor interjected loudly. "They're back again, and we're just wondering how much they know."

"All right then. One moment please. Let me check the sign-in book." He went rigid, and his glasses filled with numbers and symbols, data that was scrolling dizzyingly fast. Then his demeanour reverted to normal. "The Ti'urb have been here. Members of the Council. About three weeks ago. They checked out file number 3049DQP-Blue-T."

"Which is what?"

"Let's find out," said Carax. He took four steps back into an aisle of sorts, and the Doctor and Martha followed. There, he stood in front of a small podium that contained a keyboard. He typed in a command and waited. In about five seconds, some sort of flying machine appeared in the aisle, and it was coming at them at warp speed. Martha recoiled a little, though the Doctor and Carax remained steadfastly staring at the thing.

What looked like a flying saucer stopped just sort of Carax's head, and an arm extended from inside it, and handed him one of the plastic volumes.

Carax handed it off to the Doctor.

"Damn it," the Doctor muttered as he inspected the cover.

Martha looked at the volume. It was black, and in gold, there were engraved some rather familiar images. They were, she knew, Gallifreyan symbols that constituted their written language. It was far too complicated and mysterious for her to understand, but she knew it when she saw it.

The Doctor sighed, and pressed a button at the top of the volume, and a screen appeared, where the "cover" of the volume had been. More Gallifreyan text appeared, and the Doctor's finger began to scan down the page.

"Could they read this?" she wondered. "Wouldn't it only be legible to a Time Lord? I mean, the TARDIS won't even translate it for me."

"All they'd need is a certain type of translator volume," he told her. "Carax, this library carries the Prexles Key, doesn't it?"

"I'm afraid so."

"How many times have I told you to destroy that thing?"

"At least a hundred, but I'm afraid that's not your call, Doctor," Carax said with his sardonic smirk.

The Doctor's index finger made a selection, and the screen changed to a different set of text.

"Hm," he said darkly.

"What?" Martha asked, worried.

"This volume is specifically about Time Lord technology that's not concerning Trans-Dimensional Molecular Compression."

"What the hell does that mean?"

"Any technology that the Time Lords created, that's not about... well, things being bigger on the inside. There would be a whole separate set of volumes for that."

"Of course there would."

"This volume contains quite a bit of info about our sonic technology," he said. "And... yep. Here it is. Sonic manipulation amplified through the Time Rotor."

"Oh. Does that mean what I think it does?"

The Doctor took a moment to read. "Yeah, it does. It means a TARDIS can work in tandem with a hand-held sonic device, and can, as you may have guessed, amplify the effects of the device."

"Does that mean that using the TARDIS, you really _could_ destroy Ti'urb, if you wanted? The whole of their world?"

"Yes," he said. "Apparently. It says, in essence... sonic manipulation via the time vortex could send shockwaves through _the history of the planet_ and destroy it at its core."

"And make like it never existed?"

"Almost," he said. "Blimey, that's a lot of destruction."

"You didn't know you could do that?"

He thought about this for a moment. "No, not really - never thought about it. I'm glad to say that my mind doesn't quite work that way. I suppose I could have worked it out, if I ever got warped enough. I guess... I've always found other alternatives."

He was so lost in thought, that Carax stepped forward and simply took the black volume out of his hand and switched it off. "Doctor, if you're finished..." he said.

"I am," the Doctor said softly.

"So this is good," Martha says. "It means that the Ti'urb know that you could end them. They think you weren't bluffing."

"Yeah," he whispered.

"Isn't it good?"

"Martha, if they think I can, and would, wipe out their existence, then why the hell are they screwing with us again? What kind of fresh hell have they got up their sleeves that makes them think they're out of my reach?"


	6. Insidious

INSIDIOUS

Having said a warm 'thank you' and 'goodbye' to Carax, but leaving the otherworldly librarian to watch quizzically, and with a hint of pity, the Doctor trudged back up the stairs in the Barcelona book shop. He re-entered the TARDIS, as Martha followed.

"Doctor, it's going to be okay," she tried. "We'll beat them. We always do."

"Yeah," he whispered. He made his way to the lone seat in the console room, and threw himself upon it. "Okay, let's examine this. What's changed in their M.O.?"

"Well, that's the problem, isn't it? Their M.O. has never been exactly consistent," Martha pointed out. "Sometimes they've mucked about with you, sometimes with me, sometimes both together. They have created scenarios for us to experience, inside and around the music, and they have been able to create for us illusions _of each other,_ and other people we know, within those worlds! They have even stolen _our_ ability to make sounds! Sometimes they talk to us directly, by moving our persons to wherever they are, but one time they talked to us across a public channel. And more often than not, they have a message for us within the music - though sometimes, the 'message' is just ugly death."

"Blimey."

"Doctor, I would say that forcing me to listen to a song that makes me see the truth of something, whether I've already seen it or not, isn't that much of a change in M.O.," she commented. "Just a variation on the previous variations."

"Maybe you're right," he said. "But what they've done this time just seems benign for them. Too benign. Too subtle. Insidious. In the past, they've hit us over the head with their music and their messages and their... psychotic-ness. So again, it makes me wonder, what special torture do they have planned for us that they begin in such a seemingly-harmless way, and think they're immune to the wrath of a Time Lord? Which they know, or at least think, is formidable."

Martha fell silent, remembering, and having a realisation. The word _insidious_ had awakened something in her memory. _Insidious_ made her think of a thing, sneaking inside, under the radar. Mystery and intrigue infiltrating little by little, entering the playing field when one would least expect it...

Something significant had, indeed, changed.

"Plus, none of this explains how and why you were able to sing the song flawlessly, in its entirety, the second time I asked, but not the first time. After only one hearing," he continued.

"Do you think that was them?" she asked, her voice soft and trembling a little.

"It has to be."

Again, she fell silent, and this time, caught a shiver.

"What's wrong?" he asked.

"Doctor, there is one thing that's definitely new," she said. "At least to me. Maybe you have experienced it before, either when you've been manipulated by the Ti'urb, or at other times when you've..." She trailed off.

"What?" he wondered, after she didn't say anything for several moments.

"I mean, I don't know if you experience lovemaking in the same way I do... do you think that it could be contagious?

"What are you on about? Is _what_ contagious?"

"Anything. Any experiences or feelings between Time Lords and humans. Is it possible to _share_ them, or _catch_ them from one another?"

"Other than what we feel for, and with, each other? Not that I know of. Martha, I'm very confused."

"Okay," she breathed, trying to steady her thoughts. "An hour or so ago, when we were... you know, on the floor together..."

"Yeah?"

"I felt something."

"I certainly hope so."

In spite of herself, she chuckled. "Well, yeah. I felt all the usual things, all the things I _should_ feel when I'm with you, but... also something else. Something foreign. Like it was knocking on the door of my brain, trying to get in."

He scowled. "Could you _see_ anything? Hear anything?"

"No," she said. "Just feel it. Something starting, or dawning."

"Was there pain? Like in your head?"

"No pain, just... like I said, a feeling."

"Like a problem getting solved? Like, knowledge trying to reveal itself to you?"

"Yeah. Kind of. I don't really know," she told him. "But then it went away for a while. Almost like, as soon as I became aware of it, it hid."

"I'll bet that's exactly what happened," he growled. "You realised it was there, so it slunk off. Did it stay away?"

"Erm, no," she squinted, trying to remember. "A few minutes later when I was... well, on my way to... erm, catharsis..."

"Yeah?" he said again, though this time, he was scowling harder than before.

"I felt it again, but then it developed into something that touched me everywhere," she tried to explain. "Like a physical presence in my extremities. I hummed and buzzed and vibrated, almost like my flesh was made of little propellers, or... actually I'm a little surprised that you couldn't feel it."

"Martha, at that point, I wouldn't have felt a freight train if it had hit me."

"Well... I had hope that it was something you'd recognise. A feeling that came from you. Maybe an aspect of pleasure that I just didn't know about yet... or that humans don't feel unless they're with non-humans. A Time Lord thing, perhaps."

"Sorry, Martha. None of what you're saying rings a bell."

"Fabulous."

"All right, let me get this straight," he said, hopping off the stool and beginning to walk around the console like a caged tiger. "You're in the throes of total distraction, and something tries to infiltrate you. But as soon as you realise it's there, it goes away with its tail between its legs. Then, when you're even deeper in it, you're in climax, all of your attentions are devoted to what your body wants... it decides to come back and permeate your entire being. Shake you loose, as it were, while your guard is as down as it ever gets."

She looked at him, almost with anger. "Thank you for putting that into completely terrifying perspective."

"You told me to stop protecting you."

"And I meant it," she insisted. "So... what, is there something _in me_ now?"

"Maybe. Probably."

"Am I possessed?"

"Maybe, in a manner of speaking. I just don't know yet. Do you feel any differently than you did two hours ago?"

"I feel panicked!"

"No... you know what I mean."

"I don't think so. It's hard to tell because I'm upset, and in the last hour, I've put myself through a myriad of different feelings. Starting with the disarming sex that caused all of this."

"Pretty sure that's not what _caused_ it, but you're upset right now, so..."

"Well, Jesus, Doctor, what the hell is it? How do we... you know! Get rid of it?"

"I'm not sure," he told her. His calm was infuriating.

She took his former spot on the leather seat. "Well, can you hook me up to machines? Can you, like, probe my mind or something?"

"Maybe, but you'll have to calm down first," he said. "The TARDIS can probably scan you without hooking you up to anything, but you'll need to revert to form."

"Okay," she said, taking a deep breath. "That makes sense. Fancy a walk in the park?"

* * *

A two-hour stroll through Hyde Park, and a cup of tea at the Serpentine Bar and Kitchen on the way back, calmed Martha significantly. They talked about everything _but_ the Ti'urb, and it did her a lot of good.

But the TARDIS' scan found nothing useful. The data showed that _something_ about the constitution of Martha's oscillating energies was out-of-the-ordinary for her, but it could not say what. The Doctor speculated that perhaps the Ti'urb had read even further into Time Lord technology, and worked out how to cloak themselves from detection by a TARDIS, which was not reassuring to Martha.

Of course, it was no mystery the _source_ of the infiltration- it just would have been nice if they knew the goal.

"Now what?" she asked, again sitting on the stool, leaning back with mental exhaustion.

"We wait."

"For them to do something else to me? Wait for more damage?" Her voice was rising in pitch.

"Sorry, but... do you have any other ideas? We know the source, but we don't know the purpose. What was done to you, happened at a time when they specifically knew you wouldn't be paying full attention, so all you know is that _something_ happened."

"Yeah, I guess. Maybe they were just opening me up to hear the song the way they wanted me to."

"Maybe. It _could_ be as simple as that, I suppose," he reasoned. "But I would wager, Martha, that it won't be long until they do something wicked conspicuous, that will give us more information than they intended. They might have got slightly more savvy this time, but one thing has always been consistent: they eventually either cock it up, or they reveal themselves and their objective, which allows us to wriggle out of it. They're arrogant, if nothing else. They always boast, and talk too much."

"Okay, so, we're hinging our hopes on them doing something dumb before it's too late."

"Yeah. Sorry."

"Even though you seemed to think a couple hours ago that their plan had to be _particularly_ diabolical if they now know that you can use the Time Rotor and the vortex to annihilate them. Damn it, why aren't they afraid of you?"

"Dumb and diabolical aren't mutually exclusive."

"You hope."

"I'm trying, Martha, okay?"

"Okay, I'm sorry," she conceded. "I'll keep my guard up, and let you know if anything else weird happens."

"Yeah, but not _too_ up," he said with a wink. "Maybe the best way to draw them out is to bring your guard down again."

"How very convenient for you, Doctor," she lilted with a little smile, again, in spite of herself.


	7. Heaven Help My Heart

HEAVEN HELP MY HEART

Life proceeded as normal for two-and-a-half more weeks. Martha continued her graveyard-shift clinical rotations, the Doctor kept the TARDIS in Hyde Park and continued to come round in the morning when she was getting home. They went to the cinema once, had dinner with her brother, even went on a couple of hair-raising, civilisation-saving expeditions in unknown parts of the universe. Unknown to her, anyway.

They even managed to let their guard down, quite a few times.

Though it was never down completely, not for Martha, anyway.

Case in point, she lay in the semi-dark of the TARDIS' largest, and now only _used_ bedroom, and stared at the ceiling. It was seventeen days after _This Moment_ had been inserted into her mind by the Ti'urb, they visited a library in a pocket dimension, and came to the conclusion that there was something "installed" within her, via sexual distraction. With her body still on-edge from experiencing what was, admittedly, _genuine_ pleasure at the Doctor's hands, she took a deep breath and sighed. It was not the sigh of contentment that she ordinarily might have let slip at this juncture, but rather, it was fraught with despair or aggravation. This was not lost on the Time Lord lying beside her, whose dual heartbeat was just now decelerating down to normal.

"You okay?" he asked, before exhaling pointedly.

"No," she said. "I think _this_ is the Ti'urbs' objective. This is their revenge."

"What is?"

"The fact that I can never get fully into this now."

"Really?"

"Yeah. I'm constantly on-alert for that weird _infiltration_ feeling to appear again, that I can't just let go, and enjoy this the way nature intended."

He turned to look at her, with worry. "That's weird, because it seemed like you..."

"I did," she said. "But it's only half about what's going on with my body. There's also what's going on in my mind. If I can't unleash my qualms..."

"I'm sorry, Martha. Has it been like that every time since that morning?"

"Yeah."

"Ugh," he groaned, disgusted. "Why haven't you said anything?"

"I didn't want to ruin it for you too."

"That's very nice," he said. "But you've got to tell me these things. How are we supposed to kick this little Ti'urb problem if you're keeping stuff things from me?"

"I know." She sighed again. "Well, I suppose it could be a lot worse."

"Yes it could," he agreed. He slid his arm underneath her head, and encouraged her to roll over. "A distracted orgasm is definitely better than what some people get."

"Definitely." She closed her eyes and snuggled up, making a decision to just _be,_ if only for a few minutes.

She breathed in his scent, took in his warmth and felt better, began to relax. She reminded herself that no-one gets a fully unfettered relationship - or a fully unfettered anything, for that matter. And this "fettered" relationship was still unfolding in the arms and in the bed of the most exciting man in the universe, the _only_ man she had ever loved so hard it hurt. He was the last of his kind, he had saved the Earth more times than she could imagine, and he had over nine centuries of experience under his belt... in almost every possible scenario. And _he_ wanted _her!_

And _that_ was thousands of times more than pretty much anyone in existence ever got. _So, take that, Ti'urb,_ she said to herself.

But now it was the Doctor's turn to sigh. "But I know what you mean. I wish you didn't have to settle for just _better than what some people get_."

 _Well, it was nice while it lasted_.

But she whispered, "Shush, I'm happy."

And when it started, she almost didn't notice. A simple upward, three-note arpeggio, in a minor key with some electronic-sounding instrumentals. It was definitely dated circa mid-1980's, but it was pleasant enough to hear. Some piano chords interspersed with a tinkling melody came in a after a few bars, and somehow, captured the pathos, passion, and tension she felt underneath it all...

And then a voice took over.

 _If it were love, I would give that love  
_ _Every second I have  
_ _And I do.  
_ _Did I know where he'd lead me to?  
_ _Did I plan  
_ _Doing all of this for the love of a man?_

She thought, rather unconsciously, "Any part of me that's not a medical student is The Doctor's Companion. His partner, his girlfriend, his lover, whatever I am. When did I become that person? No wonder my mother thinks I've lost my mind."

 _Well, I let it happen anyhow.  
_ _And what I'm feeling now  
_ _Has no easy explanation,  
_ _Reason plays no part.  
_ _Heaven help my heart -  
_ _I love him too much!_

How often had she had thoughts like this? About how lucky she was, when he looked at her _that way?_ When he kissed her, tugged at her, when he was inside her, whispering to her... the only one in the universe who could touch him that way, was her. Sometimes that fact made her want to disappear into the vortex with him forever, and never come back, never, ever face reality again.

Even just a few minutes ago, she had been able to shed her qualms and find peace by reminding herself of who he was, how having him was so much more than having anyone else...

 _What if he saw my whole existence  
_ _Turning around a word, a smile, a touch?_

And Martha knew, one of the reasons why he loved her, was her independence. Was that all an act on her part? Did he know how much she mentally and spiritually clung to him, and everything that he was? _Could_ he have any idea of the hugeness of him, in her life?

 _One of these days, and it won't be long  
_ _He'll know more about me  
_ _Than he should.  
_ _All my dreams will be understood.  
_ _No surprise,  
_ _Nothing more to learn from the look in my eyes._

 _Oh I know that time is not my friend,  
_ _I'll fight it to the end,  
_ _Hoping to keep that best of moments  
_ _When the passions start.  
_ _Heaven help my heart  
_ _The day that I find  
_ _Suddenly, I've run out of secrets,  
_ _Suddenly, I'm not always on his mind._

He was a clever man. Beyond clever. Beyond a man. He was _the_ cleverest being in the universe, probably... how could she ever hope to hold onto him? And she had no idea what he'd been like before, but in _this_ incarnation, he wasn't just smart-sexy, he was sexy that you could see from across the room, and feel in your bones when he smiled, the kind that sort of swept in his wake when he walked, the kind that becomes a liability...

Here she was, basking in the glow of his affections, stupidly, without realising that her days were numbered. It wasn't just the _This Moment_ principle of entropy, that nothing lasts forever. It was a whole different thing, being with this man. Part of love and attraction was _mystery_ , having secret desires to dole out, tantalisingly, as needed and wanted. But the Doctor... he would likely be able to read all of them before too long, if he couldn't already, and then where would she be?

And with that, she sat upright, jostling them both out of a kind of reverie.

"What's wrong?" he asked, slurring his words just a bit, as though he had drifted off for a few minutes.

She scowled deeply and just turned to look at him.

 _Maybe it's best to love a stranger.  
_ _Well, that's what I've done.  
_ _Heaven help my heart._

The expression on her face alarmed him more than the sudden movement had. He sat up alongside her, now very much awake.

She put one hand to her forehead and said, "Blimey, this thing is dangerous." She gave a harrowed, ragged exhale before pulling her knees up and burying her face in that hand.

He was bound to know that she had heard something that he couldn't. She did _not_ want him to know that it had got to her. She was crying, and she hated to do that in front of him.

But she couldn't hide it. It was too much. She sobbed tightly, now into both hands, and he put both arms around her and pulled her in, until she stopped.


	8. The Sounds of Change

THE SOUNDS OF CHANGE

Martha paced around the bedroom. Once she had stopped crying, the Doctor had tried, once again, to calm her with tea. But it had proved ineffective, and now sat cold on the footboard of the bed. He was now in some untold part of the TARDIS, doing something, supposedly, to prevent this sort of thing happening again.

He returned to the bedroom. "Now hopefully, that's done it," he said. "Martha, I know you decided to keep your own flat for a reason, but you might want to consider just moving in here with me."

"What?" she asked, absently.

"I put a limited psychic barrier round the TARDIS," he told her. "I don't know why it didn't occur to me to do it before, but... it should help block out all of the various and sundry debris that you keep getting tossed at you from the Ti'urb. At least while you're _inside_ the TARDIS."

"Oh. Okay." She had not stopped pacing.

"I can't cloak your flat in the same way, because the source of the barrier comes from the TARDIS itself. I'd have to park inside your living room in order to make it work."

"I understand."

"I could do it if you wanted, but it might defeat the purpose of us living apart."

"Yeah. I get it."

"Martha, I know that you have thought more than once about the consequences of being with me," he said, half-leaning, half-sitting, on the footboard, and picking up the cold cup of tea. "But it might be time to think again. One of those consequences is that anyone who is gunning for me (and that's saying something) will also gun for you. And I'm sorry, but maybe that means that it's too dangerous for you to live on your own. They clearly know how to find you."

She finally stopped pacing and nodded. "Okay, I'll think about it."

She put both hands on her hips and very soberly looked the Doctor over. For the first time since they had discovered their mutual feelings, courtesy of the Ti'urb, she felt that he just didn't understand her.

He was laying out facts. And the fact was, being someone the Doctor cared about could be treacherous, when there was all manner of evil in the universe that would do anything to reel the Doctor in and/or make him miserable. She could not deny this. But in spite of herself, in spite of all the evidence she had felt and shown in the past, there was a bit of irritation at his assumption that the best course of action was that she be _more_ with him than she already was. To be fair, he was not suggesting that she stop going to medical school, and never leave the TARDIS again, but, he was suggesting that it would be better to live in his and the TARDIS' protection, rather than, say, live without the threat entirely.

 _Whoa, where did that come from?_ she wondered. Live without the threat entirely? Would she really rather give up the Doctor, rather than give up a little bit of her independence, in order to stay safe?

No. Almost certainly not.

Still, he was looking at her with a milquetoast softness that seemed uncharacteristic, and foreign. She didn't like it. Where was the fire behind those dark eyes? It had been there an hour ago when he was ravishing her like a lion on a gazelle. But now? What was she, a child?

"You all right?" he asked.

She tried to shake away those thoughts. She was just scared and annoyed, and on-edge. She loved him, and clearly he loved her... this was a hiccup. All relationships had them.

"Fine," she said, waving him off. "Just shaken."

He moved round the bed and placed the teacup on the night stand. He came back to where she was, crossed both arms over his chest, and stood with his feet apart. The Doctorly look came back across his features - the furrowed brow, the darkness, the no-nonsense scowl. Even without the silhouette of the impeccably-tailored suit he usually wore, he was looking formidable. Martha rallied. This was more like it.

"What did it sound like?" he growled.

"It was..." she began. She closed her eyes and tried to conjure the song again. To her surprise, the synthesised intro slipped back to the forefront of her consciousness, just as it had before. Then there was the piano - the chords, the tinkling melody, the angst. Vivid, just like the first time, as though she had simply called it up from a database and pressed _play._

She rather liked it.

She opened her eyes and began to sing.

 _"If it were love, I would give that love  
_ _Every second I have  
_ _And I do.  
_ _Did I know where he'd lead me to?  
_ _Did I plan doing all of this  
_ _For the love of a man?_

 _Well, I let it happen anyhow,  
_ _And what I'm feeling now  
_ _Has no easy explanation,  
_ _Reason plays no part.  
_ _Heaven help my heart -  
_ _I love him too much!  
_ _What if he saw my whole existence  
_ _Turning around a word, a smile, a touch?"_

He was looking at her with amazement. The last time she had done this, remembered a song verbatim, he had been amazed as well, both with the phenomenon, and with her singing voice. In spite of never having had any interest in singing, she found she enjoyed the attention. Though, she knew that the sudden memorisation was unnatural, and nerve-wracking for him.

But just as she opened her mouth to begin the second half of the song, she saw a different quality in him. Was that really amazement, or was it some other type of realisation, to which she was not privy?

How appropriate.

 _"One of these days, and it won't be long  
_ _He'll know more about me  
_ _Than he should.  
_ _All my dreams will be understood.  
_ _No surprise, nothing more to learn  
_ _From the look in my eyes._

 _Oh I know that time is not my friend,  
_ _I'll fight it to the end,  
_ _Hoping to keep that best of moments  
_ _When the passions start.  
_ _Heaven help my heart  
_ _The day that I find  
_ _Suddenly I've run out of secrets,  
_ _Suddenly I'm not always on his mind.  
_

 _Maybe it's best to love a stranger -  
_ _Well, that's what I've done.  
_ _Heaven help my heart!"_

After neither of them said anything for several moments, and they had simply stood and stared at one another, Martha asked, "Well? Can you see why it had me in tears?"

"Erm, yeah," he said, but she was wasn't convinced.

"Doctor, the whole song is about how a woman has devoted her heart and soul to being with a man, and yet she predicts that someday soon, he'll just grow tired of her. He'll get bored and think she has nothing new to offer him," she explained impatiently, her voice more high-pitched and desperate than she would have liked. "For someone like me, in love with someone like you, you can understand why this fear might be particularly raw."

"I can, yeah," he said, now beginning to pace himself.

"Doctor, what is it?"

"What is what?"

"You're being evasive, even for you," she said. "You said you wouldn't try to protect me from the truth anymore. Not to mention, I'm pouring my heart out, here. You could acknowledge the pain I'm feeling." Though, oddly, she wasn't feeling much pain at the moment. She was just annoyed because he didn't seem to be listening.

"Martha, to be honest, I wasn't paying close attention to the lyrics of the song," he confessed.

"Fabulous," she said flatly, her annoyance now validated. "Then why bother? You know that the message is always embedded in the lyrics. But no matter... let your mind wander. What were you thinking about? Daleks? A Disney film? The North American river otter?"

"I was thinking about the fact that while you were singing, I couldn't hear your voice."

"Couldn't, or didn't want to?"

"Couldn't!" he shouted at her, now himself growing impatient.

She was surprised, but was jostled back to reality for a moment. "Okay. Then what could you hear?"

"I could hear a synthesizer playing three-part arpeggios. I could hear an electric piano playing the chords, then a melody. And then, I could hear Elaine Paige's voice singing _Heaven Help My Heart_ from the stage musical _Chess._ "

"What? Who's Elaine Paige?"

"She was a West End star in the seventies and eighties," the Doctor said. "Nice lady. Tiny thing. Not the best taste in men, however. Shagged the lyricist - caused a whole mess of troubles."

"Excuse me?" Martha asked, hands on hips, now back in fully-irritated mode.

"I saw your lips moving, but all I could hear was the definitive recording of _Heaven Help my Heart_ from 1986."

"How is that possible?"

He had promised not to protect her from the truth, but in this case, he had to make an exception. "I don't know."

She had willed him to hear the song, so he had.

He had been wondering what fresh hell the Ti'urb had in store. What could possibly make them think that they were out of his reach?

Now, he thought he knew, and it wasn't going to do any good to tell Martha what he feared. In fact, it could make the process slower and more painful if he let her in. Later on, she would understand.

As a by-product, he was now fairly sure that the psychic barrier he had put over the TARDIS would not make much difference. But he felt he needed to keep her under his roof for different reasons now.

"Honestly, Martha, you can move back into your old bedroom if you want. Or, I can give you the Trillivian Suite so you can have your own little flat in the back of the TARDIS, but please consider living full-time here. I'll stay with you in the suite on alternating nights if you want, or I can stay the hell out and give you your own space. You can sleep with me, or not... it's whatever you want. But just... please. I want you safe."

She stared at him noncommittally, and finally nodded in assent.


	9. Wrap Your Arms Around Me

**We must give credit to songwriters Jim Creeggan, Steven Page and Ed Robertson (a/k/a Barenaked Ladies).**

 **This song was not part of the original outline. I hope it doesn't feel too off-the-rails in the long-run. :-) Enjoy.**

* * *

WRAP YOUR ARMS AROUND ME

Martha desperately wanted a break, and wanted to sleep alone, in her own flat, the following night. She was exhausted from the Ti'urb debacle, and frankly, the Doctor's presence didn't help. Though she usually found his presence a comfort, at the moment, his presence seemed to be at the root of all of her problems.

But she still trusted him, and more or less knew that he was correct: as long as she was on her own, not in the TARDIS, not with him, she was a sitting duck. Such was life with him. Being at his side really sometimes meant being _at his side_ \- for better or for worse.

So, she consented to sleep in her old room, in the TARDIS, the one she had occupied in the first year during which they had travelled together. She had taken up residence there just after leaving 1599 and dispatching the Carrionites from Shakespeare's theatre. She had needed a good long rest, and the Doctor had shown her to this room. Then, after he'd decided to take her on semi-permanently, she'd moved some of her things in, and more or less "lived" there until the Master stole the TARDIS and all hell broke loose...

She lay down and pulled the lavender-coloured bedspread over her body and folded her hands over her stomach. She stared at the familiar white ceiling with the square "relief" sculptures and found that she felt comforted to be back here. It reminded her of a simpler time. That first year with the Doctor had been a time of innocence and discovery. Forwards in time? Backwards in time? Aliens? Planets? Adrenaline? Bring it on!

Moreover, at times when she'd been able to sleep in this room, it had meant that she was not being held captive, not working through the night on some world-ending issue. It meant that she was not living in servant's quarters in a military school 1913, a glorified broom closet adjacent to an oblivious school teacher who looked and smelled like the Doctor, but who tragically did not act like him in the least. And it meant she was not trapped in a cramped flat in 1969, waiting for Sally Sparrow to send the TARDIS back to them. Times when she could lie down in this bed and sleep meant that she was travelling through time and space, having adventures with her friend. And that had been brilliant.

There had been plenty of angst, yes, in the form of unrequited love for a dashing, time-hopping, trouble-shooter in a pin-striped suit who was, at the time, just getting over his own lost love. But even _that_ bit, she could now see, was a symptom of a simpler and more innocent time.

Somewhere in the back of her mind, she realised that these thoughts were not like her at all, and she should actually be at least a little alarmed by them.

"Just a blip," she sighed, closing her eyes. "It's going to be okay. It's all going to be..."

* * *

Under the circumstances, the Doctor had not been surprised that Martha wanted to be alone tonight. Ordinarily, if she felt she needed a break from him, and all things time-and-space, he would absolutely not stand in her way. Tonight, the way things were, with the fears that he now harboured, he just couldn't let her go home.

But, not having her in his bed tonight gave him an advantage. He needed time to ruminate and work on the problem without her. He sat with his feet up on the console and listened, once again, to Elaine Paige sing _Heaven Help My Heart._ For the moment, he simply paid attention to the lyrics - he felt he needed to understand what had been going through her mind when things began to change.

Martha's assessment of it was correct: it was about a woman who feared that she'd given up too much to be with a man, and that soon he would just tire of her. This basic, clinical assessment, though, did not have the angst buried in it that the song itself carried. _Heaven help my heart, I love him too much! What if he saw my whole existence turning around a word, a smile a touch?_

Well, Martha would hardly have this problem. Her _whole existence_ revolving around little nuances of him? She had a family, she had medical school, she had friends and an intellectual prowess that was as large and as flexible as any human's he had ever met. Did _she_ feel her entire life revolved around her romantic relationship with him? Was she just afraid that _he_ would think so? If he did, so what? He didn't, but still...

And yet, _...It won't be long... all my dreams will be understood. Nothing more to learn from the look in my eyes. Heaven help my heart the day that I find, suddenly I've run out of secrets._

How awful to fear this. Someday soon, he would stop wanting to be close with her because there was just nothing left to interest him. She had even said that this was of particular interest to "someone like me, in love with someone like you." He pulled one hand down over his face and groaned as the music stopped.

He did indeed understand why she had been in tears the previous night. If the Ti'urb had got inside her, they could make her _feel_ the sentiments of the song, and not just hear the words and internalise them as another listener might.

He was glad he had sat down to listen again. He now thought he understood exactly what she was facing. There was fear of inadequacy on her mind now, there was the (mostly irrational) wondering over whether the Doctor would just become bored with her. She had wondered this back on Malcassairo when Captain Jack had been running his mouth about the Game Station in 200100, and how the Doctor had abandoned him. Jack had probably thought he was doing her a service. And that was way back before they were even a proper couple...

And he could see even more clearly what the Ti'urb were trying to do. Once again, they were planting seeds of doubt in Martha's mind, and pulling the two of them apart. Misery for misery's sake. Sadness for their own amusement, perhaps. For revenge.

Except, there was something else. That other thing that Martha was probably feeling now as a product of the whole onslaught by the Ti'urb...

He still had not entirely decided on what exactly was seeping into and through her. There were still a couple of possibilities as to how she could have made him hear that song. He held out hope that it was not what he feared.

Fortunately, he didn't need as much sleep as she. He would use tonight to do the research and programming, and use part of tomorrow, before Martha went in for her shift, to work on it with her. Maybe he would be surprised.

* * *

"Good morning," she said softly, coming into the console room.

"Hi," he said, turning to face her.

"Have you been working all night?"

"Well, yeah," he confessed.

"You look knackered," she told him, putting one hand on his shoulder and sidling up beside him at the stool. "Sorry I sort of, you know... buggered off on my own last night."

He hugged her. "It's okay. I understand."

"Thanks," she whispered. "So what are you working on?"

"Triangulating," he said.

"Triangulating."

"Yes."

"Well, thanks. That clears it right up."

"I was wondering, as I'm sure you were, how you were able to _will_ me to hear that song," he explained. "So I started exploring some options. Fancy a few quick experiments?"

"Sure," she said, rather interested to find out what was happening.

"Okay, so... you know that the TARDIS is sentient, yeah?"

"Of course."

"She has a psychic presence, and also a psychic link with pretty much anyone who has travelled with her for any significant length of time. Which means me, of course, but also you."

"Okay," Martha said, nodding, understanding.

"And the TARDIS was forged by Time Lords, more or less in their own image," he continued. "A TARDIS' psychic links and abilities are stronger, but it takes its power, and its image of power, from a Time Lord. And really, vice versa. Which means..."

"...that to a certain extent, you can form the same sort of psychic link with me that the TARDIS can."

"Exactly. See how clever you are?" he said, looking at her with a proud smile. "Although, like I said, I'm not as strong as she is, and the link I form with you would be through her. She is the apex of our triangle - she would be the psychic plane that you and I have in common."

"Okay, I think I understand."

"I'm wondering if one of us could have tapped into her unconsciously, and accidentally formed a link that caused you to be able to project into my mind exactly what you heard."

She nodded, thinking about it. "Sounds viable. How do we test it?"

"Here," he said, hopping off the stool. "Take my seat."

She did. She watched him adjust a few things on the console. "What are you doing, exactly?"

"I'm putting all possible settings to 'normal.' Anything that could open up a psychic channel more than usual, or close it off, for that matter... I'm setting it to its default. The coordinates arrow, the translation circuits... I want to see if this can be done with everything sitting at _status-quo_."

"Makes sense."

"Okay, here we go," he said. "Let me know when you hear something."

The Doctor stood in front of her and closed his eyes. She watched him intently, and concentrated on him. She even "searched" her mind, her consciousness, for an indicator, but nothing happened. There was only silence.

He opened his eyes after about ninety seconds. "Nothing?"

She shook her head. "Sorry."

"All right. Let's take it up a notch."

He adjusted a couple of things, then tried again.

Again, Martha heard nothing.

"Okay, what about now?" he asked. He moved forward and put both hands at her temples, and closed his eyes, bending his own head forward, almost touching hers.

"Doctor..."

"Shush," he whispered. "Give it a minute."

She closed her eyes. After a long period of meditation, Martha finally heard music. Hearkening back to the morning of their post-Doffan Priest breakfast, the Doctor chose _Eine kleine Nachtmusik_.

"I hear it," she whispered. "I hear Mozart."

He let go of her temples and took a step back, not encouraged. He sighed, with that deflated look in his eyes.

"What?" she asked. "Isn't that a good thing?"

"No," he said. "What I just did was a Time Lord trick. I've performed it on a handful of people in my life, and... well, there's no way that's what you did to me. Especially from across the room, unconsciously. You're a unique human being, Martha, but you're not..."

"...a Time Lord?"

"No, sorry."

He walked around the console once, contemplating, and when he returned to his position in front of her, he said, "Okay, you try it again on me."

"You want me to try to make you hear a song?"

"Yeah, except..." he turned quickly to the console and again adjusted a few things. "I'm closing off all psychic channels. Even the translation circuits. If you walked out into a book shop in Barcelona now, all you'd hear is good old Spanish."

"Cool. I didn't know you could turn that on and off."

"Well now you know. And now it's turned off."

"Okay."

"Now, give it a go."

Martha took a moment to think about what song she'd like him to hear come from her, assuming this could work. Nothing specific came to mind... only feelings.

And before she could stop it, a soft acoustic guitar intro began to play. She recognised the song as one that she had liked when she was a teen. And, she could tell by the earnest look on his face that the Doctor could hear it as well.

The guitar deepened in pitch and complication, and settled into something singable.

A man's voice came in, melancholy, almost contemplative:

 _I concede you were right about this place,  
_ _I can make a perfect likeness of your body, if I trace.  
_ _I can hold you 'til you turn out the lights,  
_ _And I can see..._

The Doctor felt, in the lyrics, there must be a "but" coming. Sensual and evocative, yet, there is something to be seen beyond it.

A few other voices joined in.

 _Do you believe we are all innately good?  
_ _Do you think that you would love me 'til tomorrow, if you could?  
_ _Would you please turn down the radio  
_ _So we can speak..._

A song containing philosophical questions, and some serious pulling-away. Are we all innately good? The Doctor would say _yes_ , and knew that Martha was asking because something inside of her was swinging away from whatever was _innate._

Would you love me 'til tomorrow, _if you could?_ Of course. Tomorrow and the next day, but... if you could?

He thought, _What's going to stop me? Let it try._

There's a din. There's something missing. There's an elephant in the room. Frankly, he was surprised she saw it at this juncture.

 _I put my hands around your neck,  
_ _You wrap your arms around me.  
_ _I put my hands around your neck,  
_ _You wrap your arms around me.  
_ _I put my hands around your neck,  
_ _You wrap your arms around me.  
_ _I put my hands around your neck,  
_ _You wrap your arms around me._

Things were getting darker, and she was trying to tell him something. Or at least _something inside of her_ was trying to tell him something.

"Make it stop, Martha," the Doctor commanded, with no ceremony.

She thought, "Stop the music," and to her surprise, it stopped.

There was a long pause. Then he asked, "Can you start it again?"

The voices began again, with slightly brighter music, but the tone of the song was no less melancholy.

 _I regret every time I raised my voice,  
_ _And it wouldn't be that bright of me to say I had no choice.  
_ _I can kiss your eyes, your hair, your neck  
_ _'Til we forget..._

Again, something beyond the surface. A relationship, perhaps the romance itself, even sex, standing in the way of truth? A physical relationship being used as a "solution," as a barrier between the lovers and their problems.

The Doctor was feeling cynical.

A short, contemplative interval ensued. Even in the music, her very complicated emotions were being translated into song once again...

And she was completely calm about it.

The first verse repeated.

 _I concede you were right about this place,  
_ _I can make a perfect likeness of your body if I trace.  
_ _I can hold you 'til you turn out the light,  
_ _I can't see..._


	10. Season of Hollow Soul

**Annnnnnd... this is where the story takes its turn! Martha is no longer conflicted.**

* * *

SEASON OF HOLLOW SOUL

It was Martha's day off from her rotation, so she spent the day with her sister, Tish. Again, the Doctor was rather glad to have some time to ruminate, and work on the problem without her. Though it was, frankly, safer for everyone if she remained close to him, at this stage, her involvement might actually be a hindrance, he feared.

A quick search let him know that the song she had willed him to hear was called _Wrap Your Arms Around Me_ from the early 1990's. He wondered whether it was significant, given the song's theme, that she had chosen something from her adolescence. Was this part of the message? Did she think their relationship was juvenile? Well, she likely did, considering the way things were probably headed.

The piece had some passion and a lot of melancholy at its core. The lyrics were also quite angsty, sensual and amorous in places. _I can hold you until you turn out the lights,_ and _I can kiss your eyes, your hair, your neck 'til we forget._

But both of those examples spoke to a tendency to use sex as a way of not having to deal with verbal and cerebral expressions. Were they glossing over the things that went wrong? He thought about it hard, and he didn't think so. Though, he also knew that men tend not to think so, when stuff like this arises in a relationship crisis.

Not to mention the crux of the song: _I wrap my hands around your neck, you wrap your arms around me._

That was a cry for help. Or was it a warning? Was she in serious turmoil and about to implode, meanwhile, he was still wanting to be loving and warm? Or was it worse than that?

There was no question: it had been the musical selection of a frustrated woman. A restless woman...

And once again, the issue of her independence was popping up, indirectly.

Since they had become a couple, Martha had insisted on living in her own flat. After that, she had shown no indication that she felt stifled by her relationship with him, or that she desired to be anymore separated from him than she already was. And if she felt that way, the Doctor was sure that she would simply _say so_.

He set all of the console's toggles and switches back to default, then threw himself into the seat, tilting his head back. He groaned, stretched, and knew that the worst was still to come. He had some idea of how to repair the damage - he had some experience with Martha in this area. But it _had_ to get worse before it could get better.

* * *

Thank Heaven Tish had a new boyfriend. This meant that Martha was able to spend their lunch date listening, rather than talking. She had some things to work out on her own, some doubts about the Doctor, the TARDIS, their life, the whole complicated lot of existence itself. She was not ready to talk about it, and/or receive any advice regarding it.

Not to mention, Tish had always been rather unduly curious about her sex life with the Doctor, and Martha knew that any discussion of the relationship at this juncture would lead to more of _that_. These were questions which she ordinarily rather relished in dodging, and/or to which she enjoyed responding by coyly, stingily, meting out _just enough_ information. Today, it just wasn't cute.

Truth be told, she wasn't listening that well. Tish was constantly finding, ploughing through, and shedding boyfriends, and Martha had never been able to relate to this aspect of her sister. And this _homme du jour_ wasn't big news, and Martha just wasn't that interested this time. These romances of hers were more things that could keep a person down, more ties to this world that made a human being all the more entrenched in _things_ and entwined with _people_ and... ugh.

What had happened to her?

Or, a better question: what had been wrong with her before?

Over the course of thirty-six hours, Martha had experienced a slow, but very drastic, change. Ordinarily, thoughts of resentment about being tied to a mortal coil would lead her to wonder if she was depressed. But she didn't feel _depressed_ , per se. Depression was a disease that expressed itself in diverse ways - she did have some experience in psychiatric rotations. She felt no lethargy, pain, or bouts of weepy, self-destructive rage. She felt impatient just to get away from _this_ (whatever _this_ was) and move on to _the next thing_ (whatever _the next thing_ was).

Get away. Especially from her loved ones. She knew it wasn't like her, but there it was. Tish, Mum, Dad, Leo, her friends, and even _him_. That man for whom she nearly died multiple times, for whom she had literally walked the planet. That man she would have given up everything to be with (and maybe she had), and for whom she remained lowly and humble and all-too-human, when she should be celebrating an exaltation...

Lunch. In a restaurant. So pedestrian. She felt like a prisoner.

"Tish, I'm sorry, I have to go," she said.

"What?" her sister asked, totally surprised. "We haven't even finished our lunch yet!"

"I'll pay you back - just ring me later and tell me my share and I'll send you a cheque or something. I need to..." Martha slid to the outside of the booth and stood up.

"Are you okay? You're leaving me, like, literally in mid-sentence."

Martha sighed and looked her sister dead in the eye. Flatly, she said, "I'm fine," and she turned away.

"Martha!" Tish whined with concern, reaching out to grab her sister's wrist.

But Martha must have pulled away just in the nick of time, for Tish not to be able grasp her. Though, she could swear that she had moved in time, and she didn't see Martha's arm jerk at all. It was like her fingers had gone straight through Martha's skin and bones...

Mechanically, Martha simply headed for Hyde Park.

Change was coming, but she wasn't sure quite when. In the meantime, there was no need to alert the Doctor, so she headed back to the TARDIS.

Moreover, she wasn't really sure _how much change_ , or whether she needed to do anything more to bring it about.

And as she walked, she heard, clear as day, a bluesy electric guitar chord and a melancholy drum line. Then:

 _Keen to the shifting wind,  
_ _I bend to it blind.  
_ _To rid these kisses of sin  
_ _That must stay behind._

She felt nothing but relief hearing these words. She was, indeed, keen to the shifting wind. It was pervading every part of her being - and she had no choice but to bend to it. Somehow, now, the _status quo_ felt wrong - living, loving, flirting, sleeping with him...

 _Sour the fruit of neglect,  
_ _The core of my doubt.  
_ _Deprived are my veins you infect,  
_ _With or without._

 _Fate must have a reason,  
_ _Why else endure the season of hollow soul?  
_ _The ground on which we leave on,  
_ _How strangely fuels the season of hollow soul._

She knew that the only way to have an epiphany was to suffer through the difficult times, the degradation, the human misery. It was the hero's journey.

And everything had been skewed out of her favour. Martha Jones had been, ultimately, a servant. She'd had no autonomy until now - she'd been an empty being. As a child, if her mother and father told her to go to bed, she'd gone. If they'd told her to clean her room, she'd done it. If she defied them, she was punished, plain and simple. As an adolescent, she'd followed her sister about like a lost dog. If Tish told her to wear a particular skirt with a particular pair of shoes, she'd done it. If Tish told her how to flirt with a boy, she'd done it.

Even after that, she'd chosen to become a doctor, someone who helps and heals others, but sacrifices her health, her time, her sleep, with very little thanks, and sometimes with ridicule.

Then, of course, she'd become a Companion to a man who made all the decisions, did all the flying and leaping and taking-of-credit. When he wanted her quiet, she obeyed. When he wanted her to protest, she did. When he'd wanted her to endure life as a maid, she'd done it. When he'd wanted her to get a job to support them in 1969, she'd done it. And frankly, when he'd wanted her on her back, or on her knees, or against a wall, she'd given him whatever he wanted then, too.

She gritted her teeth, and tried to shake off the residual lust those thoughts brought on.

Lust is for the weak.

 _Seed of uprooted chance,  
Are grains of goodbye.  
Waving boughs so slowly dance,  
Questioning why._

 _Fate must have a reason,_  
 _Why else endure the season of hollow soul?_  
 _The ground on which we leave on,_  
 _How strangely fuels the season of hollow soul._

The season of hollow soul was over. Martha Jones was through with being a hollow soul.

She walked in rhythm with the music, and turned the corner to the bird-watching corner of the park where the TARDIS dwelled.

She went inside, was greeted by an empty console room, and passed through it. As she moved down the corridor, she could hear him making noise in one of the workrooms. She walked past, treading a path toward her old bedroom, and said, "I'm back," rather flatly.

"Hi!" he called out. She could hear his trainers on the floor, stumbling over a bunch of debris. He stuck his head out the door, and asked, "Everything all right?"

She turned, and gave absolutely no expression nor inflection in her voice, when she said, "Perfectly fine."

* * *

The Doctor was not fooled, but he went back to repairing a precision circuit that he had fixed at least eight hundred times in as many years.

He could see, Martha was undergoing a type of metamorphosis, and in the last few hours, since she had been with Tish, the change had pushed even further along. He guessed at the reason. The catalyst may have been Tish herself, and her girly, complicated life into which she often dragged Martha. Then Martha had probably heard something else, another poignant piece of music. She had not been within the protection of the limited psychic barrier around the TARDIS, not that it made a huge difference anymore, and when anything changed these days, it was usually _sound_ that caused it.

But this was the first time this had happened to her, without her sharing it with him.

He continued to work, and couldn't help but think, would they ever have peace? Come to that, would he ever have _his_ Martha back as he knew her? His brilliant, beautiful, effusive, emotional Martha? He shuddered to think that she was lost forever...

And if she was lost, he shuddered to think of what that meant. And it was not just that he would have to learn to live without the woman he loved (again). It was not just that the Joneses would lose a daughter, and the Earth, the universe, in fact, would lose a brilliant doctor.

It was also how much she knew about him! She knew his M.O. better than anyone in existence, including strengths and weaknesses, and those of the TARDIS as well. He had shown her a side of himself that hardly anyone, in nine hundred years, had got to see. He had taught her how to fight and persevere and outsmart the enemy. He was _invested_ in her, and the Ti'urb knew that. Their plan was, indeed, smart and insidious.

No, no. No! He would not let that happen. No matter how lost she got, no matter how entrenched in this thing she became, no matter how long she stayed gone, he would _not_ see her lost forever. He would fight until he had her back - even if it meant giving her up in other ways.

But what was he thinking? _Seriously, Doctor?_ he thought.

She was right here, in the TARDIS with him! At least, for the moment. She was more than a little bit "off" as far as her behaviour, and probably whatever was going on inside of her head, but he still had her here, within his grasp! Why the hell was he thinking about losing her forever? There was so much he could do _now_ to keep her in his sights. He had decided earlier that it had to get worse before it got better, but... no, he wouldn't let that happen either.

But her voice pulled him out of his reverie.

"Doctor, I'm going out," she said, walking past the work room, not stopping to smile or wave, or even say goodbye.

"Erm, okay," he said. It had been about an hour since she had come in from lunch with her sister. Where was she headed now?

He discarded his repair work and resolved to find out.

He gave her a minutes' head start and then followed her out the door, careful to make sure the TARDIS was locked behind him. Though, if Martha had a key (and she did), then, well... fat lot of good.

She took a familiar path, walking rather rhythmically, though not particularly quickly, toward her own flat. She did not seem to be on-alert for him following her, and as a matter of fact, showed no signs that she was at all aware of _anything_ going on around her. So, the Doctor jogged up to gain on her, still keeping a silent distance, but now, he was perhaps only ten metres behind.

He stood across the street and watched her walk into her flat. He traversed when the coast was clear, and let himself in after her, again, locking the door behind him. He was careful, silent.

He hid in the foyer behind a squared-off wall (on the other side of which was her kitchen pantry), and waited. He couldn't see her at the moment, but could hear her moving about in the bedroom. She came back to the living area within a few moments, having changed out of the patterned dress she had been wearing, into a sterile black pair of trousers and black tee-shirt. He tiptoed behind her as she walked out through the back door, across the tiny patio where they had recently had breakfast together, through the little cluster of trees, into the green belt she shared with a number of her neighbours.

There, he concealed himself behind a bush and a tree trunk, but he almost gave himself away with the gasp that threatened to burst out of him. He had not quite expected anything this big, this soon.

In the little green courtyard, there waited a seven-foot-tall sofa pillow with arms. It was chocolate brown, though its skin seemed to oscillate and swirl, marbled with a slightly lighter shade of brown. Its mouth was at least four feet wide, and like that of most of its home-planet fellows, it drooled profusely. The eyes were surprisingly small, yet set far apart. The entire effect was just as startlingly ugly as the first time he had seen one of them.

"Are you ready, Miss Jones?" it asked her.

"I'm more than ready," she replied.

"Good. Then say goodbye."

She turned round and caught the Doctor right in the eye. "Come on out, love," she said, patiently.


	11. The Truth

**OMG! Signs of life! There is actually more than one person reading this fic! Hallelujah! I ask only one thing: if you are reading, please review! I want to know you're out there, and it's so heartening to know what people are thinking. Fanfic should be a reciprocal relationship - it's only fair!**

 **And by the way, thank you!**

 **So, the next few chapters are shorter than the last few, just FYI. And in spite of the weirdness and possible ickyness of this chapter, it might be my favorite one so far. :-D There is some "exposition" in this chapter, and I hope you find it seamless rather than, "Giles, what's going on?" "Well, Buffy, let me explain." (Sorry, crossing fandoms there.)**

* * *

THE TRUTH

The Doctor stepped out from behind the three trunk and pushed his way through the bush. Martha stood about ten feet away, waiting. The look on her face was impassive, unemotional, like a brick wall.

"Martha, you don't want to do this," he said to her.

"Oh, you're wrong about that, Doctor," she told him. "I know you're not used to my saying that, but you'll get over it."

"I'm not wrong - _this_ is wrong. They infiltrated you," he said. "Slithered inside when your guard was down!"

She put her hands on her hips and looked at him with tedium. "Look who's talking," she muttered with a sardonic lilt. The Ti'urb wanted for a lot of basic decency, but one thing they never lacked was a sense of irony.

"You've been violated, don't you see that? They got into you and began changing the composition of your being and consciousness from that first moment. They have _changed_ you, Martha, changed who you are, and _what_ you are. And they didn't give you a choice in the matter!"

"Well, there's no way that a _human_ Martha Jones would ever have consented to this, so they had to take action. And now I will be exalted!"

"Exalted? By becoming a being made of sound?"

"By being free of _things_ , of matter, of the filthy human coil of existence," she said, distaste spreading across her lovely features.

"Listen. Think about what you're doing! You've got a family! A life here..."

"...here with you?" she asked, then laughed. "My life with you was the filthiest bit of all, don't you understand that?"

He rolled his eyes. "Oh, okay, I get it. I pushed you to this."

"If anyone keeps me grounded, if anyone keeps me embedded in human drama..." she took a pause, and looked him over slowly, like a long sip of a hot drink. "If anyone keeps me drowning in my own body, it's you."

"Drowning in your own body?" He noisily sucked in air through his teeth. "What an image. Actually, that's quite poetic, thanks," he said lightly.

Her face scrunched into a look of disgust. "Ugh, enough," she said. "Humans are all food and possessions and sex."

"Ah, but I'm not human."

"Near enough."

"Thanks."

" And when I was with you, I was oh-so-human," she said. "You never let me forget it."

"Nope, I didn't, did I?"

She smiled, and changed the subject. "So, you know of the plan, Doctor. For how long?" she asked.

"Longer than you. In fact, I'd have thought you'd catch on quicker than you did. Frankly, I thought you were being a bit obtuse by refusing to realise what was right in front of you," he lied. Actually, he hadn't expected her to know what was happening to her until the bitter end. The Ti'urb would have seen to that. If she had, for a moment, suspected that she was _becoming_ one of them, she'd have fought a lot harder, back when she had the wherewithal. She would have known better what to fight.

For a moment, he thought to wonder if perhaps _he_ was the obtuse one. How could he have let it get this far? Well, things had progressed, especially today, a lot more quickly than he had anticipated. She had turned on a dime since this morning.

"Obtuse?" she asked, somewhat amused.

"Of course," he scolded. "How the hell else could you have been able to remember a song word-for-word, note for note, after only one _intangible_ hearing, and after having more or less declared that you couldn't remember it very well? How else could you have _willed_ me to hear that Elaine Paige song? I The only beings in the universe I know of who bother to do that sort of rubbish are the Ti'urb! Well, and Time Lords, but we can do a lot of cool stuff - that's hardly here nor there."

"Modesty was never your strong suit," she muttered flatly.

He ignored this. He spoke to her slowly, condescending on purpose. "Really, it never occurred to you that their abilities were seeping through your pores, and therefore, soon you'd be in the fold with them? Martha, I'm surprised."

She shrugged. "Well, part and parcel of the human experience. Ignorant of the obvious, focused on the trivial. Fortunately, I'm past all that."

"Past being human? Oh, I doubt that. You might be morphing into a Ti'urb on the inside, but on the outside, you still look awfully good to me," he told her with a smirk, looking her over slowly, drinking her in. He knew it would disgust her, and that was good.

She turned and looked at the hulking, heavily-breathing, brown thing behind her. "Do I have to look like _this_ forever?" She sounded as if this had never occurred to her. Her voice was high-pitched, almost panicked. She held out her arms, as if she didn't want to touch her own body with them.

"Well, Martha, you must understand..." it said.

"Oh-ho! They're going to keep you looking human so you can infiltrate, et cetera, et cetera, kind of like our old friend Vancheré, except you won't need the glamour. It means you'll always be _used_ by them. You're going to be a decoy! And that means you'll always be an outsider. Do you really want to live like that?" he said. He looked her over lasciviously again. "Because, frankly, my dear, if you want to come back and live with me, I'd be fine with it. I'd rather aggressively dampen your psychic abilities, of course, just to keep the peace in the TARDIS. Your insides would be rendered benign, and you might hate me for a time, but you know, your outsides are the most _engaging_ bit of you anyhow. My bed has always had room for two, love. 'Course, I'd probably also have to do something to solidify you a bit more, since you're now made of sound. _That,_ as you can imagine, just wouldn't do at all. It would be a fairly simple process."

Again, it was a lie. Her outsides were nothing to sneeze at, of course, but he absolutely could not live without Martha Jones' brain, heart and gut.

She was, as he expected, disgusted, and far enough removed from herself not to realise that he was being purposely facetious and audacious. The Ti'urb had a sense of humour, but just now, Martha was fully engaged in severing herself from the very thing that had been keeping her from "exaltation." She was in no mood to play.

"Ugh, Doctor!" she spat. Then, after a beat, "Actually, you know what? I don't know why I'm surprised by any of this. You're just like them - those _humans_. They're so rooted in their wants - hunger and lust, food and sex, all fat and lazy and constantly wanting satiety with things they can squeeze and possess. Knocking about through space and time for eight centuries with them has made you weak and corporeal. You're a Time Lord, for God's sake! You're supposed to be a cerebral being!"

He shrugged. "I'm a rogue. Ask anyone. But you already knew that."

"Indeed. Because even after you learned _the truth about me_ ," she said with mocking, slithery malice. "You still wanted me in your bed. You still had an undeterred gluttony that you did not hesitate to take out on me. Or put into me." She shuddered.

"Correction," he said, suddenly quite serious. "It was after _suspecting_ only _one of_ the possible truths, that I went about my life, and decided to make love to the woman with whom I share my life. There is a difference."

"No, there isn't. You knew I was, in your mind, _tainted_ , and you still..."

"...loved you? Yeah. Sue me." After a quick pause, he added, "And by the way, I would never call you _tainted._ You were a victim."

She sighed, almost in resignation, and smiled. "Don't worry, love," she said. "In a few minutes, you won't care anymore."

"Well, _that's_ not going to happen," he argued, without moving his lips, but watching her very closely.

"I'll see to it," she said, gently.

"I see," he said. Then he addressed the loathsome, spongy, potato-like being, still looming behind her. "Are you sure you want to let her do that? 'Cause if I stop caring about _her_ , then your insurance policy is kaput _._ I'll be free to destroy your weird little planet, its inhabitants and all of its history. I'll be able to erase it from existence, throughout time, without compunction, even with _her_ on it."

"Yes, well..." the thing said, slowly, with its deep, sickening, gurgling voice.

"Your brilliant plan to bring her into the fold so that I couldn't touch you... well, if you let her repel me from feeling anything for her, then..." he shrugged as if to say, _you see?_

"Martha," said the pillowy Ti'urb. "Perhaps it would be..."

"Shh!" she snapped at it.

It sputtered a few protestations, as if it were experiencing righteous indignation over this treatment at the hands of a lowly human. Or, at least, from a new recruit.

She took several steps forward until she was close enough the Doctor could smell her.

Or, rather, he would have been able to yesterday, or the day before. Today, she was just barely present anymore.

She reached up and cupped his cheek with her right hand. Significantly, he noticed that her touch was cold, and that it wasn't really a _touch_ at all.

He had been hoping to keep her talking. He was going to continue being by turns audacious and maudlin, just to keep her revolted and occupied for a while. Because while she was here biting him with malice, she could not fly away with the brown blob behind her. This would buy him time.

Or, could have.

But like everything else in this debacle, everything was happening too fast...


	12. Rolling In The Deep

**This chapter is bizarre, and it was quite difficult to write! I wanted it to be very visual and auditory, almost like a music video, and for the images and music to sync as they do in my mind, but it's almost impossible to do that with words. In any case, I hope you'll seek out the song as you read this chapter, and feel the emotions and images as you do. This song/scenario is different in that it's not just thoughts the characters are having, but things that the Doctor must see and experience. I tried. ;-)**

 **Also, thank you for the new reviews - I hope you'll keep them coming. As you may know, I'm somewhat needy that way. I've come to terms with that part of myself. :-)**

 **And, credit where credit is due: Paul Epworth and Adele. And yeah, I know... it's from 2011. But Martha has access to ALL songs now!**

* * *

ROLLING IN THE DEEP

He was whisked away. The familiar sensation of being compressed caught him by surprise, and he seemed to fly across space through a tube. He struggled to understand, to find his bearings...

And he was unceremoniously dumped out in what he knew was only a facsimile of his bedroom in the TARDIS, the one he had shared, until last night, with Martha. Though he knew it was fake, he ran for a bin at the side of the sofa, before falling to his knees and vomiting. The phenomenon was not new to him - he had been pressed into nothing, and pulled across time and space by the Ti'urb before... but this time, it felt more violent. Martha had been known to lose her lunch after such a trip, but until now, the Doctor had managed to keep it together.

Part of the difference was knowing, beyond a doubt, that it was _Martha_ who had transplanted him, and not a drooling sofa-pillow-with-a-personality sort of fellow. Perhaps it was her lack of experience and finesse that caused the sloppy delivery, but just as much of a contributing factor, he reckoned, was the emotional impact.

He groaned as he got back on his feet, and noticed that yet more music was playing in the environs. A guitar, being plucked quick and low. It began rather quietly, then very pointedly crescendoed.

When he turned around, he saw Martha lying in the bed, partially covered by a white sheet. She was lounging with one hand behind her head and the bedclothes pulled in a kind of triangle across her body. It barely concealed key portions of her, and exposed one perfect, brown leg, and most of her right side, from her shoulder, all the way down to her hip. A voice sang:

 _There's a fire starting in my heart,  
_ _Reaching a fever-pitch and it's bringing me out of the dark.  
_ _Finally, I can see you crystal clear -  
_ _Go ahead and sell me out and I'll lay your shit bare.  
_ _See how I'll leave with every piece of you.  
_ _Don't underestimate the things that I will do!_

He walked toward the bed, and as he did, she stared him in the eye and smiled, gesturing with one finger for him to join her.

In spite of a surge of lust that shot through him, upon simply _seeing_ her, and the temptation to sink into the fantasy, he felt repelled. He was just a bit repulsed by the mischievous smile and the _come hither_ gesture. He'd seen the truth of her, finally. She was a vixen, a succubus, infected by the Ti'urb. He would not fall for this, he would not succumb to it, or pollute himself with...

He stopped in his tracks. These thoughts were not like him. It was _Martha_ , not some alien _thing_. But wasn't that was she was now?

And in a moment of clarity, he saw what Martha was trying to do. The figure in the bed laughed.

 _There's a fire starting in my heart,  
_ _Reaching a fever-pitch, and it's bringing me out of the dark._

No. Martha's transformation was not some kind of revelation to him, of what she really was. It wasn't her fault, and he would not be convinced otherwise.

He knew it was a kind of magic, an artificial manipulation of sound, of ideas, but he couldn't stay here, or he would definitely get pulled in further. He turned and headed for the bedroom door, having no idea what he would find.

But in a million years he would not have expected this.

A familiar blonde, with her thick, wide, and _persuasive_ mouth and those alluring Egyptian eyes. She was dressed as he'd last seen her, on Bad Wolf Bay: black trousers, a pink tee-shirt hugging her hips, topped off by a black leather jacket. Most cutting of all, her eyes were bloodshot and despairing.

He retreated back into the bedroom as she advanced on him and mouthed the words:

 _The scars of your love remind me of us -  
_ _They keep me thinking that we almost had it all!  
_ _The scars of your love, they leave me breathless.  
_ _I can't help feeling..._

He couldn't take the sight of those sad eyes any longer, nor the thought that _she_ knew anything about this - about Martha and their relationship, and the whole history of why he was here. This, he knew, was also an emotion that the illusion _wanted_ him to feel.

Yet he turned away from her abruptly, only to be stopped again in his tracks.

In the bed now, he saw himself. Or rather, he saw only his own side and back, totally nude except for the sheet pulled across his bum. Beneath him, of course, was Martha with her legs wrapped around him. He was thrusting hard, lost deep within her, his mouth buried in her neck. Her eyes and mouth were open and sincere in the moment, and seemed to be pleading with the ceiling...

 _We could have had it all  
_ _Rolling in the deep!  
_ _You had my heart inside your hand  
_ _And you played it to the beat._

With that last line, the female figure in the bed turned and looked at him, smiled wickedly and winked.

Bitch.

Again, he felt utter disgust. It bubbled up like fire. She'd used him, lured him in, convinced him to...

He cursed. Once again, he turned and stalked toward the door. This time, when he opened it, there was the TARDIS console room. He walked toward the controls and stared up at the Time Rotor, determined. For some reason, he reached into his breast pocket and brandished the sonic screwdriver, like a weapon.

 _Baby, I have no story to be told  
_ _But I've heard one on you, and I'll make your head burn.  
_ _Think of me in the depths of your despair,  
_ _Make a home down there, as mine sure won't be shared._

Suddenly Martha appeared in the console room, and began to circle the console opposite him. Immediately the anger deflated, and felt only sorrow when he saw her. Like the Rose-figure before her, she began to mouth the words:

 _The scars of your love remind me of us -  
_ _They keep me thinking that we almost had it all!  
_ _The scars of your love, they leave me breathless.  
_ _I can't help feeling..._

The scene changed to a sunny, warm garden. He could see himself and Martha, standing below an archway, holding hands. She was wearing a white gown, and he was wearing a tuxedo, and perfect pink petals were falling out of nowhere. She stood up on her tiptoes and they kissed, idyllically celebrating a union that they both knew was impossible.

 _We could have had it all  
_ _Rolling in the deep!  
_ _You had my heart inside your hand  
_ _And you played it to the beat._

With that, the "groom" figure of himself walked dismissively away from her, and began to walk toward the Doctor. He was frozen where he stood, though he wanted to retreat. The figure seemed to walk through him, and Martha was left by herself below the archway, to fall to her knees and weep.

Was _he_ to blame for all this? Why would he even begin a life with her, knowing what they both knew of the nature of time and the role it played in their lives?

And as punishment, he was forced to stand in this spot, and watch her cry, and try to hide her face in grief.

 _Could have had it all  
_ _Rolling in the deep!  
_ _You had my heart inside your hand  
_ _But you played it with a beating._

The Ti'urb creature he had seen in Martha's garden appeared behind her then. She noticed it, stood up, and walked toward it mechanically, still wearing a wedding gown, now soiled with the dirt, leaves and crushed pink petals of the stones where she had thrown herself.

 _Throw your soul through every open door,  
_ _Count your blessings to find what you look for.  
_ _Turn my sorrow into treasured gold  
_ _You'll pay me back in kind and reap just what you sow.  
_ _We could have had it all..._

The implication was clear, as was the objective.

The refrain repeated a few times all around him as he was compressed and twisted into a tube, and jetted back across realities.

This time, when he was dumped out, it was in his own actual console room.


	13. Humanity

**This is all about the Doctor's brain. And what a brain it is!**

 **Please leave a review! Thank you for reading :-D .**

* * *

HUMANITY

He did not vomit this time, but he did need to lean on the console for a few moments to ensure it.

When he stood up, he took stock of the scene he had just been through. Martha had wanted him to separate himself from her, to _feel_ that they were over. The song and the scenario had taken a few different tacks to accomplish this. It didn't seem to know which one would work best, so it switched things up.

At first, he was made to feel dirty for engaging sexually with someone who was tainted, especially after he had begun to realise what was happening. The song said, _there's a fire starting in my heart, reaching a fever pitch and it's bringing me out of the dark. Finally, I can see you crystal clear._

Then, he was made to feel "wrong" for being with _Martha_ at all, when he'd still never had any proper closure with Rose.

Then it tried to show him how she had played him. He was giving himself to her at full-boar, and she was going along for the ride, winking and smirking. It tried to make him feel vengeful. _Don't underestimate the things that I will do! I'll make your head burn!_

Then it switched its M.O. completely, and attempted to convince him that Martha herself had felt that something was lost in the first place, and that's what caused all of this. _We could have had it all_ , the song said over and over, and she felt somehow abandoned. He was not unaware of the strangeness of their romance, given the age difference, the uncertainty, the inevitable fact that he would outlive her by millennia. Perhaps this knowledge, somewhere in the back of his mind, was _still_ keeping him at arm's length from her, despite his best efforts. And she could feel it - of course she could.

So she had turned to the Ti'urb.

Guilt, vengeance, fate. It was all the baggage that existed between them, and there's no way their relationship could survive anyway, with all of that rubbish. It was time to let go, and think of Martha Jones with a complicated, detaching bitterness, but just enough fondness.

Wasn't it?

"What?" he said, aloud, bring himself round. "No! No, it's not, you idiot!"

None of that was, in any way, true.

He could never feel _dirty_ for touching her - she was not _tainted_ in his mind. As he had said to her, she had been a victim. She had been violated. She hadn't been given a choice in the matter. It would be extraordinarily callous of him to think of her as contaminated somehow, and unworthy of his affection, after she'd been infiltrated by something that was _not her fault_. She'd been essentially shot in the back by the Ti'urb, punched in the gut when her eyes were closed.

And, if nothing else, their relationship was already inter-species. Why the hell would he care if she was just a little bit less human, and a little more of _something else,_ other than for the sake of her safety, and helping her extract herself from the malevolence of it? None of that mattered to the id, his visceral sensibilities, the part of him that _wanted_ her. Maybe it should, but it didn't.

But then there was Rose. It was true, he'd never had any proper closure with her, and it was also true that knowing about Martha's role in his life would probably upset her a great deal. He was still struggling with the non-closure bit, and all of the feelings surrounding it. But he had long-since come to terms with the fact that almost in spite of himself, Martha _had_ more or less replaced her. It had started to happen straight away. On their first night together, he told her point-blank that she _would not_ be a replacement for Rose, but he knew, even then, that he wouldn't have said it out loud if he weren't afraid it might actually happen. He _had_ needed a little bit of convincing to see the full potential for a relationship with Martha, but that tactic wouldn't have worked if no seeds of the notion had already existed. The fact was, his feelings for Martha ran deep and broad, perhaps so much so that he just hadn't seen them for a while. And also, he acknowledged, he had been actively shaking off some of them for months.

Rose was lovely, but she was lost. The Doctor had long ago embraced the buds of the here and now.

And the notion that Martha had toyed with him just didn't add up. In fact, it was so far-fetched, it was laughable. He felt sure that the only time when she'd ever significantly misled him was earlier today, when she'd gone to her room, saying she was "perfectly fine," attempting to cover up the fact that she had undergone a metamorphosis.

Though, now that he thought about it, had the Ti'urb played him all along? They had been the ones to bring his love for Martha to his notice, and all they had done since then was mess with them. Had this been their plan all along? Was he just encouraging them, by engaging further?

Well, so what? The undeniable fact was that no matter how it had happened, he _was_ in love with her, and no amount of mindfucks by the Ti'urb, even if it was in the guise of Martha herself, was going to change that now. There was no way he could feel a vendetta against Martha. There was no violence nor vengeance in his heart when it came to her... not now, not ever.

So, it would seem that unlike most other short-lived scenarios into which he had been thrown by the Ti'urb, there had been nothing to "learn" from this experience. She had tried to make him "see through" things, but the Doctor's resolve had not been swayed by the ruse.

Although... that wasn't quite true, was it? There _had_ been a revelation that arose from Martha's musical scenario, and it was just now coming to him. It was not, perhaps, the revelation she had intended; perhaps she didn't know him as well as he thought. At the moment - that was a good thing.

Because, vengeance... violence.

These two concepts did not add up either. The idea that Martha would try to implant them in him, against her, in any way, was contrary to the Ti'urb's plan. Even the pillowy thing that was with her when he'd last seen her had tried, it seemed, to talk her out of the "letting go" tactic. Or at least, it had begun to try. Putting him in a state of mind wherein he didn't care about her anymore, it might make him take action that he wouldn't take if he continued to carry a torch for her.

This gave him hope!

All along, he had been asking, "If they think I can, and will, destroy their planet at its inception, what the hell makes is making them take these chances? What makes them think they're out of my reach?" Martha was obviously no imbecile; it _must_ have occurred to her at some point in this process that _having her_ in the fold would put them all out of the Doctor's reach. Well, it would have occurred to Martha in her right mind...

But, she had _shushed_ the brown pillow when it began to ask her to think twice about what she was going to do. She defied it. This meant that she was determined to make the Doctor let go of her. She wanted to break to be clean. She wanted him to feel wrong and bitter and used and guilty, all of which would make it easier for him to move on without her. Animosity made ending a relationship easier than continued feelings of love and attachment - any experienced human knows this.

Perhaps he was grasping at straws. Perhaps it was all about simply making him miserable. But he didn't think so, because she had disobeyed the Ti'urb, in order to do it.

And the fact that she seemed to want to make it easier for him to let go, meant that _she still had a shred of humanity left in her_. He wouldn't go so far as to say that there was a part of her that still loved him - that might be too much to hope for. But it meant that, at least for the moment, the metamorphosis was not complete. Not even on the inside!

With this revelation, he began to hatch a plan. As it took shape, he felt just a bit glad that the Time Lords were not about to see what he was going to do, and he groaned inwardly knowing that possibly everyone involved might hate him when it was all over. But it would be worth it, if it would get her back. But he had to hurry. The Ti'urb had been able to overtake the majority of her humanity in a matter of a few days. If all she had left was a few shreds of her self, then he might only have hours in which to act!

"Nice try, love, but you're not rid of me quite so easily," he said aloud, commanding the TARDIS, with keystrokes, to change its locks temporarily to his thumbprint ID, just in case. He then ran out of the TARDIS, slamming the door shut.

As he ran for the nearest Boots drug store, he hoped that the Jones family would eventually forgive him.


	14. The Grenade

**Another short-ish chapter...**

 **What will now follow is about three chapters of the Doctor doing stuff he knows he really shouldn't. He is laying groundwork in order to save Martha, and hoping against hope that this plan won't cause their little as they know it to explode.**

 **If you are reading, leaving a review is only fair!**

* * *

THE GRENADE

He came back to the TARDIS carrying a plastic sack from Boots drug store, with a small, rectangular box inside. He headed into one of the chemistry labs and began mixing synthetic materials - not all of them Earth-based - to mimic a particular naturally-occurring chemical. He cringed as he removed the apparatus from the rectangular box and manipulated it as needed. From there, he put it into his inside coat pocket. He went down the hall to Martha's old bedroom and located her mobile phone on the night table. He sat down on the edge of the bed, searched through her stored phone numbers, took a deep breath and dialled.

"I'm definitely going to hell for this," he muttered as he listened to the ring on the other end.

"Martha!" Tish's voice called out. "Are you okay?"

"Tish, it's me," he said.

"Oh," Tish said. "Hi. Why are you using Martha's phone?"

"I didn't know your number," he explained. "What do you mean, _are you okay?_ "

"Well, I met her for lunch today, and she got up and left really abruptly, and wouldn't tell me why," Tish said, sounding a little frantic. "I was hoping that you were her, calling to explain!"

"She left abruptly?"

"Yes," Tish affirmed. "Like she had something urgent to take care of."

"Yeah," he sighed, exaggeratedly. "Well, I may be able to help. Then again..."

"Thank God," she said. "What's going on?"

"I was also hoping you'd also have some insight for me."

"Like what?"

"Can we meet up? Maybe get coffee or something?" he asked. "I don't want to talk about this over the phone."

"Okay. When?"

"Now. ASAP."

"Yeah, sure," she said. "I've got a banquet tonight, but... I can push my hair appointment out an hour."

"I'd appreciate it. Do you know Borough Barista on Seymour Street?"

"Yep. Give me a thirty minutes. I'll need to call my stylist and do some whining and finessing."

"Brilliant," he said flatly. "See you then."

* * *

He was at Borough Barista within ten minutes, drinking a sobering Chamomile.

When Tish entered, earlier than promised, she did not order a drink, she simply sat down across from him, and without ceremony, demanded, "What the hell is going on?"

"Hello to you, too."

"Sorry," she said, taking a deep breath, and folding her hands exaggeratedly. "Hello, Doctor, how are you? What the hell is going on?"

He sighed. "I found something this morning." Then he looked at her expectantly, as though wondering if she would already have the answers.

"I'm going to need a bit more to go on," she encouraged.

"In the waste bin beside Martha's toilet." Again, he actively searched her face, to see if she knew anything.

Of course, in reality, he was fully aware that she was clueless - he was acting. Orchestrating a ruse.

"Okay," Tish said slowly, waiting for more info.

He searched her a bit longer, then said, "Nothing?"

"What do you mean, _nothing?_ "

"I just mean... none of this is ringing a bell? Nothing you want to tell me? A sisterly confession, perhaps?"

"No! Doctor, you tell me what's going on, right now!" she said to him, teeth clenched impatiently.

He sighed again and pulled the apparatus from his coat pocket. He tugged the napkin out from under his teacup and set the thing on it carefully, so that Tish could see its implications.

He had to stop himself from cringing again, as he waited the five seconds for Tish to react.

He had shown her a home pregnancy test which he had chemically rigged to read as positive.

"Oh my God!" Tish said, getting to her feet. Immediately, she was embarrassed, and put her hand over her mouth, sitting down. She corrected her voice to a more normal level. "I mean... oh my God!"

"I know," he sighed.

"Why wouldn't she just tell me herself?" Tish wondered.

"You? Why wouldn't she tell _me?_ " the Doctor wondered as well. "Wouldn't you think I'd be the first to know?"

"Wait, _you_ didn't know?"

"No," he said, feigning aggravation. "I told you, I found it in her bin."

"Well, I wonder how long _she's_ known."

"I don't know," he said. "But if she was acting weird at lunch, then I'd bet she's known since at least this morning. And you know, now I think of it, she was acting funny last night, too. I bet she knew yesterday."

Tish stared at him for a few moments, blankly. Then, "So you wanted to meet me to see if I knew why she'd keep it from you."

"Yeah," he sighed, sitting back in his chair. "Who better to ask? You're the sister."

"Well, I have no idea. I don't know why she'd keep it from me either. I'm sure she'll tell you. Maybe she's putting together a surprise dinner or something," Tish said, trying to be reassuring.

"I hope that's all it is," he muttered.

"Why are you so jumpy? You two are solid. You aren't afraid..." Then she stopped herself.

"Afraid of what?" he wondered.

"Never mind."

"No, tell me."

She cleared her throat and broke eye-contact. "Are you afraid it's not yours?"

His jaw dropped with shock, the first _genuine_ emotion he had shown since Tish sat down. "No! Are you?"

"No!" she said. "No way! Never! She loves you. No! Doctor, don't give that another thought."

He sighed with actual, palpable relief. "Okay, then. Don't say things like that."

"Well... you made me."

"Sorry."

"Are you afraid that she already knows something's wrong? With the baby, I mean."

"I don't know. Maybe. But how could she know that?"

Tish shrugged. "Maybe she's been to a doctor. I mean, like a medical doctor, already."

"The timetable doesn't fit."

"Well, maybe she's just not happy to be pregnant. Maybe she's already made a decision as to what to do about it, and she didn't want you to try and change her mind." She scrunched her face as she spoke.

"That doesn't sound like her. Does it?"

"No. But, until she met you, I'd say, neither does shagging an alien." Tish chuckled. "Sorry, that's not funny. Just... our lives are strange."

In spite of himself he smiled as well. "Well, there's got to be some reason."

"I'm sorry, Doctor, I don't know the reason," Tish said. Then, she thought of something. "Do you know for sure that human/Time Lord conception is safe? I mean, you're different species - would the _offspring_ even be viable?"

"It would. Although, I suppose there's no reason Martha would know that."

"Maybe you should tell her you know, and reassure her. She might just be afraid from _that_ standpoint. Not to mention the implications of raising _your_ child."

He indulged in a deep sigh, nodding expressionlessly.

"I'll try and pick her brain tonight, if you want," Tish offered.

"She's working all night," he told her. "And she left her mobile by the bed. Remember? I used it."

"Oh yeah."

"And she's usually deemed 'unavailable' if you use the hospital switchboard to try and get hold of her."

"That's right - I learned that one the hard way about a month ago when that bloke from the cheese shop was stalking me," Tish sighed, sitting back in her chair, thinking. "Well, she's off tomorrow morning at six, yeah? I'll try and ring her then. Or, have her ring me when she gets in. I'll let you know what I find out."

"I'll talk to her myself when she gets in," he said.

"Okay, just... don't be too hard on her."

"I won't," he assured her. "I want her to know I'm there for her... that we all are. Give me a little credit, would you?"

"And will you let me know if you find out anything?"

"I'll do what I can."


	15. The Explosion

**Well, there were a couple of strong reactions to the previous chapter, "The Grenade" - and rightly so, I'd say! This chapter may put all of that into context for you, and show you a little bit of what the Doctor has planned, and what the HELL he is doing, manipulating Tish the way he did. Or, it may very well leave you with more questions. Either one of those outcomes is good.**

 **I predict that you will find this chapter both difficult to take, and also entertaining! :-)**

 **Whatever the verdict, please review!**

* * *

THE EXPLOSION

He trudged back to the TARDIS feeling a little sick, but also knowing that the scheme, in its infinite disgustingness, had a real shot at working. There were, perhaps, _other_ ways to accomplish the same, but this was the quickest thing he could think of. It was incendiary, therefore, it would cut to the quick in a mighty hurry. And as it usually was, time was of the essence.

He connected Martha's mobile phone to the console as soon as he arrived, and began the wait. He considered having that rare bit of alcohol to calm his nerves, but just in case he needed to fly into the fray on short-notice, he wanted to be razor-sharp. So instead, he paced. He paced, knowing it could be hours before anything happened.

Because, he was fairly certain he knew what Tish would do with the information he had given her. Tish was an entirely different creature from Martha, and he reckoned that she wouldn't be able to keep it a secret. He knew from what Martha had told him of Tish's exploits and problem-solving strategies (for example, concerning the "stalker" from the cheese shop), and from the drama upon which she seemed to thrive, that she rarely ever mulled over a dilemma on her own. Serious problems, and petty ones alike. Generally speaking, she hated secrets, and seemed to operate on the get-it-out-into-the-open philosophy. She got that from her mother.

Which was one reason why Martha and her mother found one another so aggravating.

However, this was one hell of a conundrum he'd tossed at Tish, and it wasn't _her_ problem to be discussed with the world. Might she actually take some time to think, before deciding to pull the pin from that particular grenade? The Doctor just didn't know. He knew she was clever, but was she in any way contemplative? It was hard to tell. He hoped that she would not choose today to begin being discreet.

When Martha's mobile rang from its position, laying on the console, it well and truly jostled him out of that reverie. It was earlier than he expected, as well. He had to hold back from grabbing for it.

He gritted his teeth and stood back with his hands in his pockets, scowling, as he watched and listened to it ring five times. Then, as it was connected to the TARDIS' systems, he heard Martha's voice ring out, "Hi, this is Martha. Not available. Leave a message - thanks!"

And then:

"Martha, it's me," came from Francine Jones' angry voice, tightening up the tension in the TARDIS. "I know you're avoiding answering your phone, but sooner or later, you and I are going to have to have a serious discussion. I've just spoken with Tish, and she's told me your little secret. Honestly, Martha, how could you let this happen? Have I not warned you over and over again, that _you need to stay focused_ if you're going to finish medical school, pass your exams, and make something of your life? It is going to be a hundred times - a thousand times - harder to stay focused now, believe you me! I just... don't understand. Was I not clear enough about birth control, all those times when we talked about it when you were younger? And, damn it, I tried to talk to you about it as recently as six months ago, and you wouldn't have it, remember? You said it was none of my business. Well, now your daft old mother doesn't sound so daft does she?"

Francine paused and took a breath.

The Doctor, not for the first time that day, cringed. What he was hearing was exactly what he had expected, but it was still difficult to listen to.

Martha's mother continued. "Anyway, you and I both know what this all comes down to. I realise he saved our lives and protects planets and universes and whatnot, but... it's not worth it. He's trouble! The Doctor is trouble! And I'm not even talking about the Master or any of the mortal danger he puts you in - the space travel, and Lazarus and all that rubbish. I'm talking about your personality, your life, your outlook! Just look what he's done to you! He's changed you so much, sweetheart, and it's so hard to watch! Before you met him, you'd have _never_ let his happen. You were strong in the face of persuasion, and you made good decisions. You were focused and ambitious, and... what _is it_ about him, Martha? How has he convinced you that you don't need to have goals of your own? I don't even _want_ to know how he convinces you not to protect yourself... what, did they not have condoms on his home planet? Did people just get indiscriminately pregnant there? God, this is a disaster. In any case you need to ring me up ASAP, and we will decide what to do. And if you have a shred of good sense, you will come to me, _without_ the Doctor. You just don't need that in your life, Martha, period. Ring. Soon. And take care of yourself - you're living for two now. Goodbye."

"Yeah, well, _that_ tactic would make her want to call you back, for sure," the Doctor muttered sarcastically as he saved the recording to the TARDIS' data banks, and then wiped Martha's voice mail clean, waiting for another message.

What _was it_ about the Doctor? she had asked. How had he convinced her not to be her own person? It was heartbreaking to think that this is what Martha's mother _still_ thought of him. Contemplating the idea that Francine blamed him for "weakening" Martha to the point where she would just give herself over, and get "indiscriminately pregnant," if there was such a thing... he shuddered. He went out of his way to give her her independence, even to her own detriment sometimes. Every decision as far as birth control was made by the pair of them - mostly her - and it did get discussed on a regular basis. Unfortunately, even if the Jones family _didn't_ ostracise him for this, Francine Jones would never get to know the whole truth about that. He knew that was a good thing, but right now, even though this particular conflict was artificial, he really felt like giving that woman a piece of his mind.

Granted, she was upset at the moment. It was Francine Jones at her kneejerk worst, and he knew he should hate himself for bringing that out of her. He kind of did. He had to vehemently remind himself that it was all for a good cause.

Nevertheless, he felt like crying.

It was only about five minutes before the second call call came.

"Hi, this is Martha. Not available. Leave a message - thanks!"

"Martha, it's Tish. I'm so sorry about that - I was there, I heard every word mum said to you. I couldn't stop her calling! I tried, but you know how she is - all bluster and blunder, ask questions later. And I'm sorry I had to tell her about... you know. I just had to talk to someone about it. And I thought there was a chance she already knew. Honestly, I did. I didn't mean for her to attack you. I guess I should have known better. But Martha, why wouldn't you tell me you're pregnant? Why wouldn't you tell the Doctor? You have us all very, very worried, love, and you need to know that we're here for you. There is no reason for keeping secrets, no reason to think you're alone. You know mum loves you, and she always comes round in the end. Please call me, and talk to me. Not hearing from you is killing me! I'm a mess, seriously! I love you. I love you both. All three of you. Just... call. Okay, bye."

The Doctor sighed, and once again, saved the message to the data banks.

He thought there was probably little chance that Tish had _actually_ thought Francine knew anything about it already. He knew she hadn't _meant_ to hurt anyone, but... well, again, she's a different creature from Martha.

It was over an hour before the third call came in.

"Hi, this is Martha. Not available. Leave a message - thanks!"

"Hey, Martha, it's Leo. So, I hear congratulations are in order! Just wanted to say - you're going to be a great mum. You've been a great role model for me, anyway... not that I've ever showed it. Anyway, I hear _our_ mum's gone mental over it. Don't listen to her - you and the Doctor, just live your lives. Okay? Far be it from me to give either one of you advice, but if I were to give you any, that would be it. Just live your lives. Just be happy. And you know you can count on me and mine, right? Whatever you need, just call. Both of you. Love you."

The Doctor saved the message, smiling at Leo's relatively concise and positive tidings. Though, he was, arguably, the family member with the smallest stake in the whole business.

And after another twenty minutes: "Hi, this is Martha. Not available. Leave a message - thanks!"

"Hi honey, it's dad. Well. I'm told I'm going to be a granddad again. Good on me - I've enjoyed it so far! Can't say I'm not a bit surprised, but then again, you've always been a surprise, at least to me," said the gentle Clive Jones. He was clearly trying very hard to keep his tone light. He took a pause, then continued, "You know, I have to admit, I'm... struggling a little with it because I thought you were on a particular path, but maybe you have something else in mind now. Things _have_ changed a lot over the past year, what with the Doctor and the Master, and your trek across the world. Maybe you're seeing life differently these days. Maybe your goals have changed. I'd have thought you'd share that with me, but... I mean, it's not like you're a teenager, I know...

"Okay, I'm not helping am I? I'm sorry. Scratch all that. Listen, here's what I really want to say: I know your mother is going to fill your head - if she hasn't already - with a bunch of rubbish about how you'll never finish med school now, and probably about how you've been irresponsible and silly and it's all the Doctor's fault. But that's all it is, Martha, rubbish. I'll admit, I have some fear and confusion about things changing so quickly for you - I can't help it, I'm your dad. But the bottom line is, you're a grown woman, you're intelligent, and I believe you know what you're doing. You probably understand the consequences better than I do, given your relationship with an alien... sorry, is it okay to say that? I just want to be a positive force for you, rather than a negative one. I'll work on your mother, you just work on yourself, and your little one. And your relationship, it'll become important to work on that, too... because it's going to change now. And call me, if you want to talk. I promise I'll speak coherently, if you do. Love you, sweetie."

The Doctor saved the last message, and then disconnected Martha's phone from the console.

He liked Clive Jones a lot. He was clearly still behaving like a concerned parent, but he could see the big picture in a way that Martha's mum had always missed. Clive had said what _he,_ himself, might have said in the same situation. Though, he did wonder how smoothly things would go if he were ever to be alone with the man, before he revealed that the whole "pregnancy" thing had been a ruse to save Martha from an alien foe. He didn't guess very well. Fortunately, he intended for that never to happen.

Absently, he wondered, for Martha's parents, what the overwhelming emotion would end up being: relief that she wasn't pregnant at the moment, or anger at the Doctor for making them think that she was.

Whatever misgivings he was having, he needed to shake them off. Next would be the difficult bit, the bit that might have got him thrown in Time Lord prison. That is, if any other Time Lords remained.


	16. Intelligence

**Sorry for the delay - been out of town!**

 **What can I say, the Doctor is still breaking rules and scheming... enjoy!**

* * *

INTELLIGENCE

The TARDIS dematerialised from that afternoon in 2008 in Hyde Park. It arrived on a morning in 2008, a few weeks before, in a familiar neighbourhood.

On the first try, it landed in the green belt, facing the wrong direction. After the Doctor quickly readjusted and refined the destination, he was able to move it fifty feet and park it against the wall of the outside of Martha's flat, right beside the tree-enclosed patio. He contemplated perhaps putting it inside the flat itself, but reckoned that would be just a bit too risky. He needed to remind himself that he was dealing _with himself_ now, and that any false move might alert _himself_ to the fact that he was (they were) being watched. Which could, potentially, be a disaster.

It was currently ten-after-five in the morning, and he knew that _he_ would, at the moment, be in a Westminster market, buying ingredients to make Martha a spectacular breakfast. But soon, he would be hurrying back, in order to get the meal ready, as Martha finished her hospital shift at six o'clock.

This gave him a little time to calibrate monitors without his other self noticing the change of quality in the air. The sensor he was using to encapsulate Martha's flat was quite diverse, and therefore, quite powerful. _He_ would be very likely to, perhaps, hear or feel it, if it was still being adjusted in his presence. Whereas, if it was set before he entered the flat, he probably wouldn't notice. The Doctor _hoped_ his senses weren't quite that acute, at least just this once. He comforted himself in knowing that on that morning, he had been away from Martha for thirty-four days, and had something fairly urgent and specific on his mind that would likely distract him from the subtleties of electromagnetic energy conducted upon the air.

The sensor was designed up pick up any energy signatures in the air at all, and he adjusted it so as not to recognise anything that originated on Earth. He also refined it to ignore any Time Lord interference, of which there would be plenty. He was looking for a way to detect, and then possibly dissect the Ti'urb's infiltration beam, or whatever it was that had violated Martha. How exactly did it work? Was Martha being changed at a molecular level? If so, how could anything change molecules into sound-waves? How strong was it? Would it give her cancer once he restored her to her full, corporeal self? Did her guard have to be down when they zapped her with it, in order for it to work, or was that just part of the conniving of the Ti'urb? Could he use any of this information to reverse it?

But he was also here for another reason, and that reason made it of paramount importance that the other Doctor, and his Martha, believed they were well and truly _alone_ in that flat.

He reduced the sensor only to pick up interference on the patio where they were to have breakfast, and in the parlour area where the most important piece of the action would take place. And then, he placed the patio and parlour under the TARDIS' surveillance, set it to record, and amplified the microphone system to fifty times standard definition. He could not remember many specifics about their romp that day, other than it had mostly occurred on the floor. He reckoned that his senses had been too far clouded by the weight of thirty-four days without her. He did not, at this stage, know whether their lovemaking had been loud or silent, or somewhere in-between. He had no idea if either one of them had spoken at all during it, or whether they had both been too preoccupied to say anything. He hoped there were some noises to pick up on, and braced himself for the potential impact of that.

As a finishing touch, he set the TARDIS' perception filter and light-refraction system on high, so that the vessel would be completely invisible, even to _him._ He tinkered with the gears for a bit as well, attempting to confine their grinding, wheezing sounds within the light refraction system, so that he could dematerialise from the vicinity as soon as possible, without waiting for the lovers to leave the flat, and without allowing them to hear. He had actually never attempted to silence the TARDIS before, and he promised her, as he worked, that he would never do it again unless absolutely necessary. He didn't know if it would work, but he reckoned it was worth a go.

And so, unless one of them happened to run into it, the TARDIS would be cloaked even from a Time Lord and his savvy Companion.

* * *

By this time, it was half-past five, and the Doctor in his TARDIS had only to wait about three minutes for his other self to enter the flat and disappear into the kitchen. Soon enough, he smelled fritatta baking in the oven, and heard the reassuringly clear sounds in the next room of vegetables being chopped, and in general, of a kitchen being dismantled.

Martha returned from work at 6:21.

From there, he tried to distract himself from watching their every move. He felt that if he didn't actually stand about and re-experience those moments, it would be a slightly-less-huge violation of the laws of his people, a slightly-less-blatant crossing of his own timeline.

After a half-hour or so of trying not to listen to the conversation going on, literally, just outside the TARDIS' doors, and the Mozart that played in the background, he heard the intro of the Elbow song, _One Day Like This,_ the passionate song he had chosen for her, just for that morning.

"Here we go," he muttered to himself.

As he listened, previously lost details of the encounter came flooding back. He sighed wistfully, knowing that this wonderful woman was about to be veritably high-jacked, beginning a chain of events that would steal her from him. She was now literally light-years away, being assimilated into another species, wanting nothing to do with him, except, possibly, to make his life hell.

The song progressed for a bit, and the Doctor knew there was a fairly serious snog in play. Then, he heard a dog's collar, and a woman's voice say, "Oi! Get a room!" He smiled to himself, and gave in to the urge to look at the screen.

The lovers in the frame laughed, and stumbled into the flat, slamming the door with a _thud_ that reverberated throughout the TARDIS' console room, with its amplified fidelity.

From there, he lost himself and watched as they fell onto the sofa and continued probing one another's mouths, and he sighed, again, with regret. But when the Doctor on the screen slid back onto the floor and began to tug Martha's trousers down her hips, he looked away. It was too much. He began to circle the console, attempting to divert himself.

After about thirty seconds, he heard his own voice growl breathily, "No. I have to have you _now_."

Ten more seconds, he heard his own deep groan. He knew himself. It was a pleasure that bordered on pain, but more than that, it was relief. Relief of being with her and inside her. It was a groan that said, _how is this feeling even possible?_

He paced even faster, growing agitated by the time that was passing, aroused by the memory he was reliving, and grief-stricken over what he had lost. He struggled to hold his resolve together, the hope that his scheme, this dangerous thing he had put into motion, would bring Martha back into his life.

That groan came with a hiss of a guttural expletive, that seemed to express something akin to the same emotional release.

"All right?" Martha's voice croaked then.

"Can't see straight," his voice replied from outside, with a barely-controlled moan. "Thirty-four days."

And then, for a few minutes, he heard only breathing, and little grunts of pleasure. From the rustling, the breath, the strength of their sighs, he could hear and feel a rhythm, the perfect pulse of their urgency. He remembered now how the white carpet felt between his fingers as he pressed her into it over and over.

"God, I might have forgot how good this feels," his voice then whispered again, echoing in his mind, and throughout the domed room.

"No way," said the man in the TARDIS, replying to the ecstatic voice being piped in from Martha's parlour.

And then a buzzer began to alert him from the console. He rushed to see what it was.

Foreign energy had now infiltrated the space.

"Oh, hello," the Doctor muttered as he watched numbers rise.

Amid the subtle grunts and breathing he could hear through the speakers, he heard, "Doctor, I feel..." The sound of her voice, so breathy, so clearly in the throes of passion, grabbed onto his whole body. It was rough to shake off.

Because, more important than the passion in her voice was the fact that she had tried to _warn him_ that something wasn't right. He had absolutely _zero_ memory of this. He felt horrible. Maybe he could have stopped it if he hadn't been so... _driven._

Within a few seconds, he noticed, the foreign energy was gone. He remembered Martha saying, later on, that the vibrations, or whatever they were, seemed to retreat as soon as she became aware of them, as though the Ti'urb were slinking off to hide, as soon as she opened her eyes.

He dared to return to the screen and watch the action. A mixture of arousal, amusement and disgust came over him as he did. For the first few seconds, anyway, until he realised that Martha's face was not reflecting the appropriate pleasure of the moment. Her _voice_ had been thin and impassioned before, but now her face had worry written all over it, even as _he_ kept on, with the pushing and pounding, totally oblivious.

Very quickly, he jumped across the controls, and changed the sensors' settings to include certain types of Earth-based energy. He reckoned (hoped) his other self would be too far gone to notice.

As soon as he did, Martha's face changed again, and she seemed to fall back into the rhythm of the moment. Her expressions went to a familiar tight-eyed, wide-mouthed contortion, and her hands went rigid and began to dig into his back. Even the angle of her body seemed to change, as though she had made a conscious decision to feel pleasure again, in spite of the outside weirdness, and allow him to bring her over the edge with him. She made more noises now, appropriate for lovemaking in its last few moments.

On the readout, the human energy was intense, growing more potent, more dense, more emotional. He understood that the numbers as they were could not continue to climb for long - eventually they would reach a peak and begin to decline again. Humans had a capacity, and Martha was about to reach it. As this happened, the Ti'urb energy seemed to grow with it, and mingle with it. In fact, the growth of it was so perfectly proportional to Martha's pleasure building that the Doctor wondered if it was possible that it any sentient being could actually be manipulating it. It was too smooth. Was it manipulating itself?

As Martha's orgasmic cry filled the console room, the familiarity and pure heat of it hit him like a ton of bricks. Loss infused him, and he struggled not to let his head spin, but to watch the readout. The energy, that unique explosive satisfaction, was still clearly human, but the quality of it was changing. The Ti'urb's energy was changing and depleting as well, as though it were being absorbed into Martha's humanness. An orgasm was a kind of release of energy that would reach out pretty far. To, say, a heat-seeking infiltration tool, as it were, it would be like a big shiny beacon.

"Heat-seeking tools," he murmured to the readout. "Is that what you have, you unbelievable bastards?"

The panting continued on the sound system, and then his own strained voice filled his ears, "Martha, I can't hold back." It was practically whispered, would have been said low, intimately, right into her ear. Again, he had no memory of saying it. He didn't like it - felt like he was making excuses somehow. Did he say things like that often?

"Why on Earth would you?" her voice asked.

On the screen, the _other_ Doctor's hands filled themselves with white yarn, and the carpet wrinkled beneath Martha's head. He looked away then, not wanting particularly to see the rest of the show. He paced and talked to himself over the groans that denoted his own release.

"Okay, it's official," he said loudly to the TARDIS, and/or, no-one in particular. "I don't care what species or planet of origin we're talking about, no-one should ever watch themselves having sex. You're never going to like it - that's just the way it works. Well, maybe unless you're getting paid. And have, like, training, or something."

At that point, the sexual energy died down, the Ti'urb's energy became absorbed (or whatever), and he dematerialised, having succeeded in silencing the TARDIS' gears.

* * *

He returned to the point from when he had left, a few weeks on, and situated the TARDIS once again in Hyde Park. He ran diagnostics on the Ti'urb's energy that he had picked up.

It was, indeed, some type of heat-seeking tool. More accurately, it was an emotion-seeking tool. It had been programmed to detect Time Lord energy signatures, but to latch onto a human. This practically guaranteed they'd get Martha, and no-one else.

"Clever, clever," he muttered with teeth clenched.

The beam had been set to pick up Martha's outpouring of emotion, as the Doctor had thought, like a beacon, and begin to mix with it. As it turned out, having her guard down to keep her from fighting it off had not been necessary - it was simply a by-product of what happens to humans when their emotions run so high that an intangible, alien infiltration system can sense it. As he could see on his readout, the emotion that she was experiencing during sex with him, especially during orgasm, was practically palpable. The Ti'urb wrapped themselves around it, and slithered inside her, burying themselves within the din of her body and soul's already very loud out- and input.

Again, he muttered, "Clever." But this time, he was calm. Because, he knew his physics, and he knew that in most of the universe, nearly every energy principle was reversible.


	17. The Exaltation of Litoumera

**Wow, sorry again for the delay. Needless to say, a few things have been distracting me lately! Hopefully, I can now make a big push forward and finish this story!**

 **This chapter is long and weird. Rengamoc's big speech is meant to show you the "ceremony" and hard-earned fortune involved in what is happening to Martha, and to build up her nervousness and excitement. But what it winds up doing is bringing you up-to-speed on the bind that they're in, and the long-winded reasons why. If you didn't read all of the "music" stories leading up to this one, this chapter is a good one for you!**

 **It's a bit silly, a bit emotional, I hope a bit funny... but I hope at the end of it, you're anticipating with bated breath the next instalment! Enjoy!**

* * *

THE EXALTATION OF LITOUMERA

And now, what to do about the insanity of the last few hours?

The TARDIS was equipped with one of everything, including an editing bay. The Doctor sent the voice mail recordings of Martha's family members from the console into the editing room's computer system. He tinkered with all four of the Jones' voice messages, and cut out any references to a pregnancy. He intercut it very carefully, using what he had, and what he knew of Martha's family, and Martha's sensitivities about her family. This was somewhat delicate work, and took another couple of hours.

Then he began on the recordings he had made just a little while ago, in Martha's flat. This was even more difficult. Not only were their carnal goings-on simply harder to listen to, but he didn't have as much material. Potent as it was, he had to use it wisely. It needed to pack a punch.

He added one other bit of his own, a healthy nod to his life with Martha that may hearken to their relationship: a song. It was just something that felt right, something from Martha's era. It was about a mismatched pair, a man who had some trouble fitting in with humanity, who knew he was, and would always be, misunderstood... except by one woman. Listening to it now was an emotional endeavour - it reminded him how very alone he was, without her.

Then, he sent the edited data back to the console room. The sound sequence he had created had to be converted to a different, less-tangible type of data. This was the most delicate bit of all. He had to scrap the project three times before he finally achieved the type of distilled data beam that he wanted, the type that would allow him to reverse the energy principles employed by the Ti'urb, and infiltrate Martha in the same way.

He reckoned if a fob watch can hold within it everything that is a Time Lord, then it certainly could contain bits of a human. Even if it had been forged by Time Lords, on the outside, it was ordinary metal. The question was, would what he had prepared for the inside be enough?

He drew from samples of the Ti'urb's beam that he had taken, and again, deconstructed it. He had already isolated a frequency within that constituted what he thought of as the 'heat-seeking' property. He now extracted it, and added it to the soup of technology within the watch. Then he modified the Chameleon Arch to do his bidding, which was not entirely unrelated to when he had rewritten his own biology and stored his past in the watch.

After that, he very specifically set aside the sonic screwdriver, reminding himself that its use at the wrong moment could damage Martha irreparably, as it had done to the last Ti'urb who had tried to muck about with their lives. He wanted her back in one piece, and that included one very sharp mind. Though, not for the first time, he forced himself to remember that even if she came back one-hundred-per-cent Martha Jones, this dangerous scheme may cause her to pull away from him forever. It was worth it, if it would restore her humanity. It _had_ to be worth it.

It was a mishmash of different technologies - Ti'urb, Time Lord and Human - and the whole thing was a huge gamble when the Doctor really thought about it. Or, alternatively, it could be the very sort of thing that would make it work. And when it was done, he turned the watch over and over in his hand, sighed, and dropped it into his pocket for now.

And now came the final, most crucial, step: find Martha. Surveillance of the Ti'urb. They were made of sound, and could probably communicate without leaving much of a data trail. But they had a government, and that meant that they had to keep records somehow...

The TARDIS began to probe.

* * *

Martha Jones sat in the front row of a large room with lots of benches.

At least, someone who _used to_ be known as Martha Jones sat there. Now, she didn't know what she was called. She supposed someone might tell her today.

In any case, she was nervous and excited. Her tiny human feet, wrapped in absurd, "stylish" human boots, made a little patter on the floor, and she wrung her hands like a child. Her stomach fluttered; she was still made of flesh, at least somewhat, and by consequence, still somewhat enslaved by the sensations of her body. Though, she had been assured that with time, all of that would go away. Eventually, they told her, she might even begin to take on the look of a real Ti'urb, rather than this dainty, dirty, hideous body and face she had worn for the last twenty-six years. She trusted in their process, but she sincerely hoped the change would, in fact, occur, and occur soon; she hoped that infernal _Doctor_ had not been correct in assuming that her new cohorts planned to keep her looking human, so as to use her as a reconnaissance tool or some such.

But she also knew that the Doctor often said things that weren't true just to put the adversary off-balance. Lucky she knew so much about the Doctor...

Her official presentation to the Ti'urb Planetary Council had been entered into the docket, saved, and distributed electronically to all of the Council members, even before the process of turning her from human had begun. Her new planet-mates had indeed had confidence in their ability to manipulate a lowly human - well, why shouldn't they? It _had_ been frighteningly easy.

The presentation was to take place in just a few minutes. She fought to contain her excitement, though she knew it was normal for a Ti'urb to feel emotion, in their way. She had only to wait for this particular argument in Council to be over, and then, she could have her turn, and be accepted as one of them.

After the longest "few minutes" of her very short (thus far) life, she heard a voice say, "And that concludes this discussion of cordoning off the Weddox Territory."

Another voice: "But, if I could..."

" _That concludes_ this discussion. And now, if we could turn our attention to Rengamoc, our newly-named Humanity Liaison, he has a presentation for you."

A small round of applause ensued, as Rengamoc waddled up to the dais. Martha admired his dark brown skin that swirled in the light, and wondered if her skin would someday look like that. Would she have vestigial features from her human self, that translate somehow into the look of a Ti'urb, or would she become someone that looked _completely_ different from Martha Jones?

She also admired the bulbous, pillowy quality of his large body. Humans are so superfluously shapely - in particular, female humans have the coveted _curves_ , and seek to keep their bodies firm and defined. She shuddered a little thinking about it. What was the need for all of that fretting, when the real beauty was _here_?

Rengamoc spoke. "Some time ago, one of our cabinet members, Ramechac, the Purveyor of Nightmares, ran afoul of a man, a Time Lord, who simply calls himself _the Doctor_. After much research, Ramechac determined that while he uses Ti'urbian Sensory Manipulation to produce nightmarish scenarios in the minds of humans, the Doctor, by contrast, does his best to quell fear and work against the sort of phenomena that scare the proverbial pants off of humankind. It began, therefore, as a more or less _personal_ mission for Ramechac himself to rid the universe of the Doctor."

Chatter and din filled the room, until Rengamoc continued with a booming voice.

"In his research, he also found that the Doctor is rarely to be found alone. In fact, he had, at that time, a companion named Martha Jones. As it happened, Miss Jones dreamed frequently of the Doctor, though her dreams were hardly nightmares. Ramechac, being attuned to these frequencies, assumed rightly that Miss Jones was enamoured of the Doctor, and used standard Sensory Manipulation against them both, to create several nightmare scenarios in which her love for him was exhibited in full, right before his eyes."

Martha shuddered at the thought of her old self, and how she followed the Doctor for so long, like a lost pup.

"Ramechac thought that he could ensnare them both and cause Permanent Cerebro-Resonance Assimilation, and thus be rid of the Doctor and his companion. But it was not to be. Some interference of human origin came between Ramechac and his kindled scenario.

"Well, as this story illustrates, and as you may already know from his reputation, Ramechac is not the most powerful amongst us, though he does come from an influential political family. Therefore, enter his sister, S'dromer, who waited another human-calendar year to pick up where her brother had left off. At this stage, it was still rather personal. Through her own research, she learned that the Doctor and Martha Jones had split as a travelling pair, and the reason was Miss Jones' adolescent unwillingness to live with a man who does not return her affection. S'dromer felt this a travesty, and used Sensory Manipulation upon the Doctor to help him see that he harboured similar feelings for Miss Jones. On the surface, it seemed that preserving or cultivating their so-called 'romance' might have been her chief goal, but in reality, amongst the family, they had decided that the Doctor still needed to be taken down, and the easiest way to do that was through his companion. And the easiest way to render them both vulnerable? Make them fall in what humans call 'love.' It's a type of visceral pair-bond, difficult to explain or understand for us, who are higher beings, immune to such nonsense. Actually, according to S'dromer, the process should have taken a lot longer than it did. The Doctor fell into her plan, and fell in love with Miss Jones, like a building built from Retuzzafoam.

"As you may know, Ramechac and S'dromer have an androgynous sibling, Essed'iv, who does not practice Sensory Manipulation for 'personal reasons'. That very night, Essed'iv used its sound-wielding to remove the voices of both parties. Therefore, they could not express their 'love,' nor discuss the very complicated factors that led to their relationship unfolding. The intent was to keep them miserable, and in a frustrated holding pattern until a fourth sibling could be dispatched to manoeuvre them further. Unfortunately, Essed'iv had forgotten that humans who fall in 'love' occasionally do something called 'love-making' which is a _physical_ expression of 'love.' In the absence of words, the Doctor and Miss Jones 'made love' to confirm their union, thus communicating in spite of Essed'iv's scheme, negating Essed'iv's thrall. Essed'iv was subsequently chastised by the Council for its insistence upon alternative means of manipulation, and urged to return to traditional Sensory methods.

"The fourth sibling was, indeed dispatched, though after a period of regrouping. And Vancheré came at the couple at full-throttle, and tried to have them both literally killed within the Sensory Scenarios. By this time, the family's efforts had come to the attention of the Council - how could it not? They were making the Ti'urb mightily conspicuous, putting us on the radar of one of the most storied and feared men in the universe. It was now a matter of planetary security. The once-great political family had now failed three times to take down the enemy. They were practically in disgrace - Vancheré was their last hope. No wonder he launched a full-frontal attack! And when he failed to bring about the Doctor's death, he trapped Miss Jones, as Ramechac had attempted to do, and pulled her into the first two stages of Permanent Cerebro-Resonance Assimilation, but the Doctor used his sonic screwdriver - you heard me correctly: he possesses a _sonic_ manipulation device - to unravel Vancheré's faculties, thus releasing Miss Jones.

"Following that debacle, the Doctor materialised his vessel right here in this room, returned Vancheré to our ranks, and threatened our entire planet with destruction, using the sonic screwdriver, if we attempted to pursue him or Miss Jones again. Of course, it is in our by-laws, that an enemy does not go unpunished, especially an enemy of this sort. A four-time escapee, who then threatens the harmony of our world? He had to be undone! I am not the Defence Liaison, but even I know that much! Any Ti'urb on the street knows this much! Unfortunately, the damage he had done to Vancheré with his sonic device was all-too-real, and our world being made of sound... we weren't sure of the actual danger from the Doctor's sonic screwdriver. So, a committee visited the Archival Library in a pocket dimension, ironically, only accessible through a portal on Earth, and learned that the Time Lord does, indeed, have the power to destroy this planet and everyone on it, using his sonic screwdriver. That is, if he couples it with a Time Rotor, which is the component of his vessel that interacts with the time vortex. Wielding of the vortex being what it is, not only could he destroy us, but he could render us non-existent throughout time. All traces of the Ti'urb could be wiped out of history, if the Doctor so chose!"

There was another din in the room, while the folks in the gallery attempted to accept this knowledge.

"And so, we had to take a different tack. If we were going to make another attempt to take out the Doctor, we had to put ourselves well and truly out of his reach. We had to disarm him - remove his ability to use what weapons he has. What's the best way to take away the Doctor's resources and make him vulnerable? That old thing called love. So, back to plan A: go through the companion. And that is why we are here today, my fellow Ti'urbians. Martha Jones, please join me."

Martha stood up, and walked up onto the dais beside Rengamoc. She faced the gallery, filled with pillowy beings of different sizes, shapes and colours, all bulging, swollen, drooling and beautiful to her.

"Friends, this being that you see before you is Martha Jones - the very same. And she may still appear to be human, but I assure you, on the inside, her transformation is nearly complete. We used a Enmesher Beam, and our knowledge of human emotional/carnal activity, to begin the process of morphing Miss Jones into a Ti'urb."

She felt encouraged, as the gallery reacted positively to this news.

"And so, as you can see, with Martha Jones in our midst, as a being made of sound just like the rest of us, the Doctor will not attempt to end Ti'urb, until she is disentangled from our society. It is our intent that this will never happen. It is our intent that with her as our guide, we will be able to stay several steps ahead of the Doctor and his plans. She has already made her official break from him - I was there, and witnessed her Sensory Manipulation myself."

She felt hot and ashamed, knowing that her last shreds of humanity were tainting her first attempt at Sensory Manipulation, and she had tried to make the break easier for the Doctor by making him hate and pity her. She now hoped it had not worked, and that the Doctor was actually beside himself with misery.

"She is under strict orders not to leave the planet in an unauthorised capacity. Any off-worlding that she does will be with the express purpose of, our old objective, ridding the Ti'urb of the Doctor. She retains unique knowledge of his ways, his innate vulnerabilities, his personality, et cetera. She will be a useful tool for the next phase of our journey."

Well, the Doctor had been right - they intended to use her. But this was a small price to pay for the exaltation she was to experience!

"And so, henceforth, she shall no longer be known as Martha Jones. She is now Litoumera, our most valuable weapon!"

This was music to her. _Litoumera_. Gorgeous , that was. She could finally shed the mantle of Martha Jones! That was one more little bit of her humanity, no longer plaguing her. She felt free, and she allowed herself to smile widely at the gallery, as they applauded, but no facial expression could match the excitement she felt within. She was finally _one of them_ , finally going to give the Doctor what he deserved, and she had an entire Planetary Council behind her!

Gleefully, with the joyous support of his comrades, Rengamoc continued, "Having Litoumera here with us is a twofold insurance policy. Not only will her mere presence protect us from the Doctor destroying our planet at its very foundations, but he will be constantly distracted with trying to find a way to get her back. We were not able to fortify our planet, or any part of it, against infiltration by his TARDIS, his vessel, because the vessel itself transcends matter and dimension. But, his 'Martha' is no longer corporeal in the way that he is used to, so the task of _kidnapping_ her will be difficult. Based on his _modus operandi_ with Vancheré, we predict that his first order of business will be working out a way to re-corporealise his 'Martha' from afar. He will not be able to do this without the sonic screwdriver, and he knows that he will not be able to wield the screwdriver aggressively without damaging her. The finesse needed for such an operation will be great, and the preparation will likely take quite a lot of time, during which, we can..."

But something interfered with 'Martha's' perception of Rengamoc's words. Some humming deep within her being, some... well, infiltration of sorts. It was a familiar sensation, and also foreign. She couldn't quite place it, or get her mind round it...


	18. Who I Am

**We are winding down now! This is the third-to-last chapter! *gasp!***

 **Credit to John Rzeznik (who, incidentally, I've seen up-close and in person, and is properly gorgeous). Hope you don't find his song too hokey a way for the Doctor to reach out to Martha.**

 **And as always, your reviews are appreciated! Please cater to my neediness! ;-)**

* * *

WHO I AM

Something was interfering with 'Martha's' perception of Rengamoc's words. Some humming deep within her being, some... well, infiltration of sorts. It was a familiar sensation, and also foreign. She couldn't quite place it, or get her mind round it...

And then she heard... "Martha, it's me."

Her eyes opened suddenly very widely, and she gasped loudly before she could stop it. This was not lost on the Humanity Liaison, Rengamoc, currently attempting to sing her praises. He stopped and looked at her.

She became aware of his gaze, and said, "I'm sorry. Please continue."

But she could not deny the fact that she had heard something, and that something strange was happening to her. Something was shaking her somehow, almost crawling through her pores...

"Martha, it's me." It had been Francine Jones' voice - she was sure of it. _That woman,_ that meddlesome human who had once been the mother of Martha Jones. She tried to hide how nervous she had suddenly become. Nothing was going to interrupt this momentous event, quell her excitement, or stand in the way of today.

"Sooner or later, you and I are going to have a serious discussion," Francine's voice continued. "Honestly, Martha, how could you let this happen? Have I not warned you over and over again, that _you need to stay focused_ if you're going to finish medical school, pass your exams, and make something of your life? It is going to be a hundred times - a thousand times - harder to stay focused now, believe you me! I just..."

And then a new, familiar voice cut in. "I hear our mum's gone mental. Don't listen to her."

Who was that? Leo? Martha's brother? Aw, well, Leo's a tolerable bloke. He mostly, quite simply, minded his own business. He wanted Martha just to be who she was going to be, and vice versa. Always rather supportive, and she enjoyed being supportive of him...

She shook it off. That was _Martha Jones'_ life. She was not that _person_ now.

The Mother's voice came back. "Anyway, you and I both know what this all comes down to. The Doctor is trouble! And I'm not even talking about the Master or any of the mortal danger he puts you in - the space travel, and Lazarus and all that rubbish. I'm talking about your personality, your life, your outlook! Just look at what he's done to you! He's changed you so much, sweetheart!"

 _Really_? How could even Martha's mother think the Doctor had done this to her? Rather, done this _for_ her. If the Doctor had his way, he would keep her human for always, keep her dragging through life in her fleshy body, lusty and hungry and...

"I have to have you _now_ ," a husky voice said.

It was him - _his_ voice. The Doctor. She recognised those words, the tone, and what might come next... And before she could stop it, before she could rationalise it away, she felt a pang. A carnal, human pang.

Then, as she tried to ramp up her will power to throw off the sensation, she was assaulted by the sounds of something unmistakable... love. She heard tiny groans of pleasure, breathing, a rhythm being established. When you're human, _this_ is the rhythm of life, and she felt herself being pulled in. She even recognised her own breath, and the Doctor's - the little bits of noise and emotion that came from them both when they were in the throes of one another...

The noise of Francine cut across it, though the sounds of pleasure did not die. " _You need to stay focused!"_

And how very like Martha's mother to try and convince Martha to keep away from the Doctor, even if it was for the wrong reasons. Some things never change. If she had had breath, she might have sighed.

Wait, was she being nostalgic? Lusty? Wistful for _Martha Jones'_ existence?

No.

No, no, no!

She must have shown some sign of distraction, because Rengamoc tutted, and asked, "Are you quite all right?" with clear irritation in his voice.

"Don't you hear that?" she asked.

"Hear what?"

She looked at the roomful of Ti'urbs, now looking at her with wonder. _Well, you know how humans are,_ they would be saying.

She forced down the emotion - or rather, forced it not to show, so that Rengamoc would continue the ceremony. But now, more than ever, she felt the humming and buzzing throughout her being.

Francine again. "Before you met him, you'd have _never_ let his happen. You were strong in the face of persuasion, and you made good decisions. You were focused and ambitious, and... what _is it_ about him, Martha? How has he convinced you that you don't need to have goals of your own?"

Then another voice. "I heard every word mum said to you. I couldn't stop her! I tried, but you know how she is - all bluster and blunder, ask questions later."

Tish - the sister. Tish gets it. She understands the relationship between Martha and the Doctor, and that it's not, in any way, about one of them convincing the other to abandon power or ambition. It is about two people who are in love, and who are misunderstood. She could always count on Tish.

Again, the sounds of passion filled her senses, right on the heels of those thoughts, and she was accosted again by the emotion of it.

"God, I might have forgot how good this feels," said the Doctor's voice, breathy, practically moaning, even now, intimately in her ear.

 _I might have,_ she thought.

But Martha never would.

After several moments of listening to the panting, mild moaning, Francine interrupted again. "This is a disaster. In any case you need to ring me up ASAP, and we will decide what to do. And if you have a shred of good sense, you will come to me, _without_ the Doctor. You just don't need that in your life, Martha, period. Ring. Soon. And take care of yourself. Goodbye."

 _Without the Doctor?_ What could Francine possibly think _she_ could do about this? Scolding Martha for choosing this path was one thing, but believing she could solve the problem without a Time Lord's help was beyond ignorant! Didn't she know what he was capable of? She might never understand what Martha shared with him, but...

 _Solve the problem_. Solve the problem? There was a problem?

Francine. " _You need to stay focused!"_

Tish. "I didn't mean for her to attack you. I guess I should have known better. You have us all very, very worried, love, and you need to know that we're here for you. Not hearing from you is killing me! I'm a mess, seriously! I love you."

Another pang ripped through her, though this one was obviously not carnal. This one was guilt. Loss. Love of a different brand.

Then came Leo again. "You and the Doctor, just live your lives. Okay? Far be it from me to give either one of you advice, but if I were to give you any, that would be it. Just live your lives. Just be happy."

She missed Leo. Well, almost missed him...

And then, there was her dad.

Or rather, Clive Jones, Martha's father. "Hi, honey, it's dad. You know, I have to admit, I'm... struggling a little, because I thought you were on a particular path, but maybe you have something else in mind now. Things _have_ changed a lot over the past year... maybe you're seeing life differently these days. Maybe your goals have changed. I'd have thought you'd share that with me, but..."

 _Share that with dad?_ No way Martha would drag any of her family members into this! She would never wish this on them - they were _human!_ In fact, a little niggling bit of indignation was bubbling up inside.

 _How could the Doctor tell them about her "exaltation?" Didn't he realise he was putting them in danger?_

Or did she even care?

Martha Jones would care.

Clive continued, "I have some fear and confusion about things changing so quickly for you - I can't help it, I'm your dad."

Another pang. What was that?

A word came into her head, maudlin and old, and it was a struggle not to say it aloud. _Daddy._

"But the bottom line is, you're a grown woman, you're intelligent, and I believe you know what you're doing. You probably understand the consequences better than I do, given your relationship with an alien. Love you, sweetie."

And then music began. A series of strummed acoustic guitar chords, cascading...

She felt dread. She felt, somehow, she'd never survive this bit. She felt vulnerable, like an exposed nerve...

...like those last stragglers of her humanity had been laid bare, and now something was about to feed it, so swiftly, so aggressively that she wouldn't be able to stop it.

Her body hummed.

The sounds of passion played alongside the music again, and even more than before, she was finding that she couldn't ignore it. It was making her feel breathless all anew. And, the Doctor always chose the right music for her. Back when she was Martha. Back when they were in love.

He'd drilled to the core of her, found her humanness, exposed it and now was going to assault it!

"Damn you," she whispered, but it seemed to go unnoticed by Rengamoc or anyone else.

 _Where are you, Doctor? I know you're there!_

A smoky male voice sang:

 _I'd give up forever to touch you,  
_ _'Cause I know that you feel me somehow.  
_ _You're the closest to heaven that I'll ever be  
_ _And I don't want to go home right now._

 _And all I can taste is this moment,  
_ _And all I can breathe is your life.  
_ _When sooner or later it's over,  
_ _I just don't want to miss you tonight._

He was not going to give up! This was all he could think about, until she was home safe.

Had any Ti'urb _ever_ , in the history of the planet, had someone who would do this for them? What must he have gone through to get Martha's family on record that way? What kind of abuse must he have taken from Francine? He also would have had to risk paradox by crossing his own timeline to get recordings of them making love...

The analytical side of her mind had been squashed and lain dormant for a while, and it almost hurt to flex it again. What was she doing, thinking about _how_ the Doctor had accomplished this? It wasn't supposed to matter!

The voice grew in volume and passion, and sang:

 _And I don't want the world to see me,  
_ _'Cause I don't think that they'd understand.  
_ _When everything's made to be broken,  
_ _I just want you to know who I am._

And then her own voice cut in, low and breathy. "Doctor, I feel..."

Something amazing had happened in that moment. Or something horrible?

 _And you can't fight the tears that ain't coming  
_ _Or the moment of truth in your lies.  
_ _When everything feels like the movies,  
_ _Yeah, you bleed just to know you're alive!_

At this, she could not quite contain the pure _feeling_ , the distilled humanity that was coming back to her. She cursed inwardly. She grimaced, and tried to hold it in, but the tears spilled, however silently. Human, forbidden tears. Ti'urbs don't cry and don't bleed! How _do_ they know they're alive?

 _And I don't want the world to see me  
_ _'Cause I don't think that they'd understand.  
_ _When everything's made to be broken,  
_ _I just want you to know who I am!_

It was, as always, the Doctor telling her something. Not only was he totally committed to bringing her home, he was trying to point out that she was all he had in the universe. _I don't want the world to see me 'cause I don't think that they'd understand..._ but _I want_ you _to know who I am._

Martha felt the same way, especially in face of the chaos that was her family - two parents and two well-meaning siblings who nevertheless added to the din of her life. _He_ was the only one who really understood her.

The song continued. There was a hard-hitting interval of orchestral guitar, a riff that seemed almost to drive into the intuition of her humanity... did that make any sense? It did to Martha Jones. And she continued to weep, ever so quietly.

Though Rengamoc continued to speak. He continued with the ceremonious oration, and became loud, almost emotive, and no-one seemed to notice that their exalted one was shedding tears of personal conflict. Was she human? Hadn't she left that behind?

The tears were also of longing and regret. The Martha Jones inside was well and truly out in the cold now.

In the midst, she heard the Doctor's voice, clearly nearing the peak of pleasure: "Martha, I can't hold back!"

"Why on Earth would you?" she whispered aloud, among her tears. Though, again, no-one noticed. The gallery seemed to be completely immersed in the words of the big, brown Liaison beside her.

And then there was a cry and a groan, a frenzied harmony of lust and ecstasy, hers and his, in sync somehow with the music.

The impact was too much - it nearly brought her to her knees.

But instead of falling down, she absorbed the stress by stepping down. First one step off the dais, then another.

This time, everyone noticed. Again, Rengamoc asked her, "What is it now, Litoumera? I'm trying to exalt you here - your behaviour is irregular."

"I, erm... I realise that. I'm sorry. I'm just still holding on to some vestiges of... well, you know," she riffed, as she made her way down the steps toward a centre aisle in the gallery. "You'll have to excuse my vulgar humanness, just for a moment. I'm so sorry..."

With that, she rushed up the aisle, restraining from breaking into a run. Those on the dais and in the gallery looked after her with confusion. She forced herself not to look at them or stop to make any more excuses. She still wasn't sure exactly what she wanted or where she was going, but she couldn't stay where she was. Exaltation didn't feel right anymore.

She burst through the doors at the back of the gallery, and looked to her right, then left.

And on the left, standing with his hand open, and some kind of device emitting some kind of light, there stood a Time Lord in a suit, with a look of total concentration and some fear.

He seemed genuinely surprised to see her. His jaw dropped, and his fingers slammed the pocket watch shut. "Well... wha... erm... wha..."

"Shush," she chided, swiftly walking up close. "We have to get out of here."

"Oh! I can't believe you're here!" He grabbed her, and tried to plant a kiss on her, as he would if she were herself.

She recoiled and placed a hand against his lips. "No. I'm not ready for that," she said, though she wasn't entirely sure she was telling the truth.

"Erm, okay," he sputtered, confused. "Come on, the TARDIS is parked outside."

"I'm not sure I'm ready for _that_ either."


	19. All Five

**Okay, I lied. THIS is the third-to-last chapter! I tried to finish with 20 chapters, but chapter 20 got all long and mutinous so I had to cut it in half. ;-)**

 **Hope you enjoy this... hope it makes sense to you, above all. Suffice it to say, Martha's reversion to human is hardly complete. Yet.**

 **And reviews are love. Honestly! **

* * *

ALL FIVE

Martha looked at the Doctor sceptically, as he led her outside, to the TARDIS. "I don't know, Doctor."

"I promise, I won't take you anywhere unless you tell me you want to go," he said, holding up his arms. "But we can't just stand about, because they will come looking for you. At best, the TARDIS will go unnoticed. At worst, they'll pound on the outside trying to get in."

"Okay," she said, reluctantly. "But no funny business."

"I don't have the sonic screwdriver on me - you can frisk me if you want. And I will stay on the ramp. I won't even come near the controls. From there, I couldn't be funny even if I wanted to."

She nodded, and they both stepped inside the console room, and the Doctor locked the door.

"Okay," she said. "You have my attention."

"Brilliant," he answered.

The silence hung in the air for a moment, then Martha asked, "What else have you got?"

"What do you mean?"

"I mean... what's the punch line to all of this?"

"The punch line?"

"Yeah... you've awakened my humanity, congratulations," she said, her voice almost pleading. "But now I feel like I'm in limbo. Like I'm between worlds, and don't belong in either one of them."

He crossed his arms over his chest, regarding her closely. "You still have vestiges of Ti'urb in you."

She shrugged. "I think so. I mean..." she trailed off and exhaled in frustration. "Maybe even more than vestiges. It's hard to tell. I..."

"What? Talk to me."

"I think that if I were fully human, with nothing more than humanity remaining, I wouldn't have any qualms about you. Don't you agree? Wouldn't _Martha Jones_ just go away with you at this stage, no questions asked?"

"Yes, she would. You have qualms?"

"I think... I... I'm looking at you, and I know I love you. I know I feel... _carnal_ about you, which is weird because I'm not supposed to, am I?"

"I think you _are_ supposed to. Martha Jones would."

"But I... ugh, I'm so confused."

"Do you not trust me?"

"It's not that. Actually, I don't know if I'm capable of trust."

"You'll get there," he assured her.

"I just feel... wrong. What's the matter with me?" she asked, her voice breaking, tears starting to fall once again. "Who am I?"

"Well, you're crying," he smiled. "That's a definite step in the right direction."

"It's not enough," she said, sniffling.

"You know that you don't want to be in that room, exalted as a Ti'urb anymore," he offered.

"No, I don't. But can I be human again?"

"Don't you _want_ to be human again?"

"I do... I think. But, I don't know how to do it!"

He smiled softly, and walked forward, placing his hands on her arms, stroking them. It felt so good just to touch her so innocently. It was as much a reassurance to himself as it was to her, and it was as though it had been an eternity since he'd felt her warmth. "Well, as you know, being human is not just about... say, walking upright and having one heart, inhaling oxygen and expelling carbon dioxide. It's not just about touching and squishing and hunger and lust either - all those things that you (or at least, the Ti'urb in you) dismissed as icky and too primal when you left..."

"But it _is_ about those things. Being human and being in love."

"It is," he agreed, with another encouraging smile. "Yes. And look at me. I'm not human, and those are the things that make up the core of me as well! Along with the time and space and technology stuff I know."

She chuckled, almost cynically.

"Martha, most beings in this universe have some of their existence wrapped up in those things - we feed our bodies, whatever that may mean at any given moment, or else what's the point of living? But it's more than that. It's being connected to something - the self. Knowing where you come from - family, friends, people you like, love, and people who make your life harder. Taking joy or pleasure in the things you do, and knowing how you really feel when you do them."

Tears continued to fall - she couldn't stop them even if she wanted to. She nodded, and barely croaked out, "Good. Keep talking."

"It's about being _you_ , it's about being Martha Jones. And Martha Jones has a mother, a father and two siblings who are mightily concerned about her..."

"Yes, if the audio onslaught was to be believed! And also a Doctor with whom she apparently has quite the carnal relationship," she said, with no joy.

He smiled again, nevertheless. "And all of that stuff hit you at your core, didn't it? Hearing it reminded you of your real life. It had to - why else are you here?"

"I heard it," she said. "But..." The tears poured out now, and she looked at him with a horrible pleading in her eyes.

"Oh, I get it," he said slowly as he looked her over, stepped away, and a revelation came to him. "The Ti'urb are made of sound, so I reckoned I could attack you with sound. What I did stripped away most of the Ti'urb, but I forgot about the whole human."

"Well, please remember," she sobbed into her hands.

"Look at me," he said, taking her face in both hands.

At first, she didn't respond.

"Look at me," he repeated, encouraging her head to tilt back, and her eyes to see him.

She craned her neck just enough, and a fresh flood of tears fell from her eyes. He muttered an apology under his breath, and wiped them away with his thumbs.

The he said, "I'm not human, so you'll have to bear with me, Martha. And God, I hope I'm enough... because frankly, I don't know what I'll do if I have to tell your family the actual truth."

She had no idea what he was talking about, but she continued to hope that he had a trick up his sleeve to bring her out of limbo.

He fixed his eyes on hers, and for the third time, he said, "Look at me. Just look, and I'll look at you. I'm looking at your eyes, your mouth, that porcelain skin, the liquid black hair. And I'm just..." he smiled. "...smitten all over again. I remember those eyes, the first time I noticed them, after you discovered I had two hearts, and you looked up at me as if you wondered if I was having a go at you. Those eyes, they danced over my face, searching me for answers... and I knew I wanted to give them. I wanted to tell you things..."

"You winked at me," she said, and as she spoke, she studied his eyes as well. "And then your eyes bore holes through me, daring me to tell, but willing me not to. And I knew I wanted to keep your secret - all of your secrets, somehow. Brown eyes... cocked eyebrow... fire inside. Always the fire."

"And your lips," he said, running his fingers lightly over them. "Perfection. Like they were sculpted from clay. Straight away I was looking for an excuse to kiss them."

She smiled. "And you did," she said. She scoffed, "Genetic transfer! But, that's when I became obsessed. That mouth of yours... that infernal, cheeky mouth. I've never known anyone who could say so much with a minute tilt of the lips. That _smirk_ you've got, it's like a language unto itself."

He stepped forward. He slipped his hands round the sides of her neck and buried his fingers in her hair, and tugged a little. She gave a little sigh at the sensation, the slightly "hard" touch, and the frisson of pleasure. To her surprise, he bent his head and took in the scent.

"Peach blossom vanilla," he mused.

"It's been two days since I've washed it," she confessed with a little cringe.

"I don't care," he told her softly, then inhaled again. He let go. "I love that shampoo, even when it's faint. It's one of the ways I know you're you. And when it's fading away, there's just the scent of Martha - your warmth and your humanness. Your face cream and soap, the worn-in leather smell of that red jacket you wear all the time."

She smiled, then closed her eyes, and moved in close to him and pressed her cheek against his jacket, wrapping her arms around his chest. He curled his around her arms and back. "What do I smell?" she asked herself aloud. "The cedar scent from the inside of your wardrobe is embedded in all of your suits."

"Well, that's embarrassing," he muttered with a chuckle.

"No, it's gorgeous," she assured him. "I also smell detergent - whatever brand you fancied this month for your shirts. Something floral, I think - I like it. And there's always a sort of sweetness to the smell of whatever it is you put in your hair to make it stand up. I always fancy that it's actually whipped cream, though I know that's ridiculous. And do you know what? This room always smells vaguely as though something is burning - and that's part of you as well. The homey bouquet of the Doctor."

She pulled away and looked up at him, now understanding the game. Ti'urbs are made of sound, and their lives revolve around their audio sense.

Humans have five senses, Time Lords have even more. But if he was to bring back all of her humanity, he had to engage _them all_.

So she decided to be proactive, and help the process along herself. She reached up, nestling her fingers just behind his ears, and pulled him down for a kiss. Neither one of them hesitated to deepen the sensation, to curl their arms tightly round each other, open their mouths and taste one another. When she pulled away, she pressed herself against him and nestled her nose and mouth against the collar of his shirt.

A bit taken aback, he breathed, "You're not wearing the raspberry lip gloss. All I can taste is you."

In response she extended her tongue and ran it from his collar all the way up his jugular to a sensitive spot just behind his jaw. He groaned as she did this, and his knees seemed to buckle just for a moment.

"That goes for me, too," she whispered. "Rough, salty. All you."

She stepped back so that she could see him fully. His eyes were wide, searching her. She gave him a simple smile.

"How do you feel?" he asked.

"I'm back," she said, quite calmly.

"You sure?"

"Well, I may need you to engage my _sense of touch_ to be completely certain," she told him, silkily, with the most subtle, suggestive wink he had ever seen.

The statement and the gesture should have taken his breath away, but that's when the pounding and shouting on the outside of the TARDIS began.

"I'm ever so glad to hear it," he said, then turned and ran up the ramp with her in tow. "But let's get the hell out of here first. Yes?"

"Yes!"


	20. Welcome Back

**Penultimate chapter!**

 **Seeds get planted here for one more ruse from the Doctor... the final chapter will tie up that particular loose end. Stay tuned for a few more notes at the end of this chapter. :-) Enjoy!**

 **O** **h, and leave a review!**

* * *

WELCOME BACK

The TARDIS' escape from the Ti'urb was a simple matter - all the Doctor had to do was dematerialize.

But as he prepared to make the blue box disappear from the planet made of sound, Martha said, "Doctor, when they were getting ready to 'exalt' me, they were talking about their history with you - with us. From what they were saying about their motives and their by-laws and whatnot, I don't think they're ever going to leave us alone. They have been persistent since our first encounter with them - there is no reason to think they will ever stop. _This_ certainly won't stop them. If anything it'll just piss them off!"

As she said this, her eyes were pleading. _Do something_ , she seemed to tell him.

"Martha, I can't destroy this planet," he told her, amid the pounding outside, now accompanied by shouting. "I mean, I won't."

"I know that," she told him. "But you scared them once... can't you do that again?"

"Scare them into doing something else that's completely mental, and taking _more_ extreme measures to keep out of my reach?"

She let out a tut of frustration, and said, "I don't know what to say... maybe a truce? Could that work?"

"Maybe, but we'd have to do it from afar, and it would take a few generations," he said. "And in the meantime, who knows what they would do?"

"Well, we can't keep dodging them - we will never have any peace. And now that we know they can find us and get inside my mind, or my molecules, or whatever the hell they did... it's terrifying to me!"

At that moment, the TARDIS began to vibrate. The entire console room felt as though a bass-line from a rap song were being played through giant speakers with no other instruments.

"Oh, blimey," he sighed.

"What the hell is that?" she wondered, just a bit frantic.

He smiled. "An hour ago, you'd have been the one to tell _me_."

"Well it's not an hour ago!"

"They're using the only real _weapon_ they have. They're using sonic waves to try and dismantle the TARDIS and leave us vulnerable."

"Isn't that what you do all the time?"

"Yep," he said. "Which is why it won't work. In the first place, sonic waves don't do wood, which is one of the reason that the TARDIS' exterior makeup is quite fortuitous. In the second place, the entire TARDIS is safeguarded against sonic blasts, in the event of... well, a Time Lord not knowing what he's doing with his screwdriver. Or, a rogue Time Lord, or civil war, like..."

"Okay, okay," she said. "But should we really be standing here, just listening to it?" She held her hands over her ears now. It actually was starting to hurt.

He took the hint, and went to the console and began pressing buttons and flipping switches. "Will you go to the bedroom and find my screwdriver?"

He was obliged to repeat it because Martha hadn't heard, but she readily agreed, once she understood. She ran down the hall and easily found the device on the night table beside the bed. She ran back to the console room and handed it to him.

There were alarming red lights flashing all over the panel where the Doctor was working. "What did you do?" she asked.

"I amped up the sound system," he said. "Almost to the point of overload." Then he pulled a microphone from a compartment she had never noticed, and aimed the sonic at it. The sound started out as it normally did, but the Doctor adjusted something so that the pitch went up and up, until they could hear shouts of pain from outside. The pounding ceased, as did the vibrations coming from the Ti'urb.

He reduced the pitch of the sonic, and then said into the microphone, in a super-low voice that did not sound like him at all, "Time Rotor engaging." Then he went back to sending high-pitched, painful reverbs of sonic pulses at them.

Martha knew that he was bluffing as always, but her jaw dropped, and she covered her mouth with both hands. And when the TARDIS' gears began to churn and she knew he was now moving them away from the planet, she began to laugh. "That was kind of mean."

"Yeah," he admitted.

"But won't they work out the fact that you're not serious, once they realise their planet isn't exploding?"

"I've already thought of that," he said, winking at her.

* * *

She felt as though she hadn't slept in days. And in fact, she hadn't.

The Doctor assured her that he needed to complete the next phase of his "plan" more or less alone, given the fact that it included a lot of Time Lord language and technology with which she wouldn't really be able to assist.

And so, she lay down and was _out_ as soon as her head hit the pillow.

And as these things do, it felt like a split second later that she was awakened out of her sleep by her telephone. Groggily, she picked it up, and said, "Hello?" without looking to see who it was.

"So you finally decided to answer your phone," the voice said.

"Hi mum," she said, trying to shake off the shadow of sleep. "It's good to hear your voice." And after what she'd been through, she meant it.

Though, what followed was a conversation that _completely_ confused them both.

* * *

"Doctor?" her voice said from behind him, just before her hand came down on his shoulder.

She startled him out of his concentrated work. He had been sitting at what looked like a super-advanced computer terminal in a room into which Martha had never before thought to venture. She didn't like it - she understood literally nothing about it. It was like someone had taken a piece of the TARDIS console and wallpapered the room with it, but took out the roundels, the seat, the soft lighting and everything else that made the console feel like home to her.

He jumped a little.

"Sorry," she said softly. "Didn't mean to frighten you."

"No, it's okay," he assured her, pulling his hand down tiredly over his face. "I just didn't even know you were awake."

"Yeah," she said, almost in singsong fashion. "About that."

"About what?"

"Why does my mother think I'm pregnant?"

He pulled a face, that was almost a wince. "Oh, damn. I'm sorry - I completely forgot about that. I was just so happy to have you back..."

"Mum is losing her mind!" Martha said, with almost a laugh. "She says she heard it from Tish, who heard it from you, and that everyone, including you, is all upset because I'm not discussing it with anyone."

"Yeah..."

"Do you know something I don't?"

"No," he told her. "Don't be ridiculous! I just told Tish so that she would tell the rest of the family, so that they would call you and offer... whatever it is that they offer. I needed them to be emotive about you, about your life choices and whatnot. You know, 'cause you're so irresponsible."

"To bring out my human side."

"Yep. And I actually thought it was preferable to tell this lie, rather than let them know what was actually going on," he said. "I reckoned if your mum knew about the real circumstances, she wouldn't just ring you up and start scolding you about Gallifreyan contraception, she would properly panic, and so would everyone else. For your humanity to be touched, your mum and dad, and Leo and Tish, they all needed to sound more normal. Emotional, but normal. Which is exactly what they are, really."

"Gallifreyan contraception?" she asked flatly.

"Yeah, I'll let you listen to the whole rant if you want - I cut it down to suit our needs at the time on Ti'urb. There was a whole thing where she speculates over whether anyone used condoms on my planet."

"Oh. What a weird thing to say."

"Yeah."

"Did they?"

"Use condoms? No, we didn't have rubber. There is this cerebral barrier thing, but it only works if both parties can do it. It's kind of like meditation, you see... wait, why are we talking about this? The point is, a pregnant daughter is a much smaller crisis than one whose very biology has been infiltrated and transformed into some other malevolent species, and whose person has been effectively removed from the planet and brainwashed into never returning. Wouldn't you say?"

"With my mum? Meh," she shrugged. "Maybe. At least being kidnapped and brainwashed would mean that I was victimised, and not just, you know... sleeping with some handsome guy in a suit without thinking of the consequences."

"Well, I'll talk to her if you want, and I will apologise," he offered. "And to you, I apologise now. For not warning you, especially. I really meant to let you know, and give you some tools for damage-control, before this happened."

She sighed. "Okay. You're forgiven."

"Really?"

"Yes, of course," she said, manoeuvring herself between him and the desk, sitting upon his lap, arms draped around his shoulders. "What am I going to do? Walk away forever because you a told a lie to save my life?"

"It was a pretty big lie. I thought you'd be more upset."

"Well, it _was_ incendiary," she conceded. "And it obliged me to have to cut off my mum and promise to ring back after speaking to you. Now she's going to be more angry with me than ever... but at least I'm human again. Do we tell her what really happened?"

"I will leave that entirely up to you. But, you'd better ring her soon."

"I'm going to do it here, because she's going to want to give you an earful," Martha chuckled, pulling her phone from her pocket. "And I'm going to let her."

He sighed. "Okay. Bring it on."

* * *

Later that day, they were back in the console room, and the TARDIS was headed somewhere undoubtedly important.

"Where are we going?" she wondered.

He didn't answer, but he fluttered his eyebrows at her, took her hand, picked up some kind of flat device from the console, and led her to the door.

When they stepped out, the Doctor's old friend Carax was standing just outside the TARDIS to greet them. They were in the rocky room, looking over the balcony at the vast Barcelona book shop, once more.

"Welcome once again to _España_ , my friends," said the man.

* * *

 **A/N: As far as the rant from Francine Jones, it will not be included. I imagine that she protests a lot as the Doctor tries to explain the situation and why he lied to Tish (a story we do not need to hear again). She says some things that hurt, Martha does as well, but eventually Francine comes around because she either a) realizes that the Doctor is not, in fact, evil, and she has witnessed him saving the world, so perhaps he deserves the benefit of the doubt after all, or b) sees that she's not going to win this battle, so if she wants to keep her daughter in her sights, she might as well play the game. But I also imagine that however much she concedes to the truth, necessity and non-malevolence of the situation, she still gives Martha another private earful later. I think that the couple's struggles with Francine will be ongoing as long as they are together. In any case, I couldn't see how this conversation would occur without rehashing old territory... in fact, I started writing it, and scrapped it!**

 **So now... what the heck are they doing back in Barcelona, and how will they fend off further attacks from the Ti'urb?**


	21. Another Lie

**Well, I had a personal deadline for posting the end of this story, and what do you know - I made it, just under the wire!**

 **So, this is the final chapter, folks. Thanks for sticking with it, especially those of you who have read the entire weird series! Someone asked if this REALLY is the end of the Ti'urb. Well, I can't say for sure. I'm finding that though they have stupid names and they make our heroes' lives miserable, I have a special place in my heart for them. Someday soon, I may yet get the urge to write a new adventure for them. (Usually it's some SONG that gets under my skin and makes me want to build a story around it...)**

 **Anyway, thank you again for reading, and I hope you find this conclusion satisfying. :-) You guys are the best.**

* * *

ANOTHER LIE

Carax had been waiting for the Doctor when the TARDIS arrived in his Barcelona book shop. But the Doctor hadn't exactly called ahead...

"Wow," the Doctor commented. "How did you know I was coming?"

"Sensors," Carax answered in his lovely, slight Spanish accent. "And, well, your TARDIS is loud _._ "

Martha smiled.

" _Touché_ ," said the Doctor. "Wrong language, I know."

"What brings you here this time?" asked the book shop's keeper.

"I have a little something to add to the volumes you already possess, concerning the Time Lords," the Doctor answered, leaning back on his heels confidently.

Carax frowned. "This is highly irregular, Doctor."

"It can't be _that_ irregular," the Doctor protested. "How did all those volumes get in there in the first place? People had to have added them."

"They have come from senates and planetary councils, governments, universities and the like. And they have come through official channels," Carax explained. "People - such as they are - do not just walk in and put things on the shelves."

"Well, given that there is information that needs to be disseminated to a certain audience concerning the Time Lords," the Doctor retorted. "And I am the last of the Time Lords, then I qualify as all those things: senate or council, government, and what remains of any institution whatsoever that Gallifrey ever boasted. Now, just tell me what sort of _official channels_ I will need to go through, and I will do it. But I hope it's quick because this needs to be done post-haste."

"You'll need to petition the Supercilious Librarian..."

"That will take centuries!" the Doctor exclaimed. "The bloody Librarian lives on bloody Goedang 5! He only even has eyes every third decade!"

"I'm sorry, Doctor, that's the way it is," Carax said. "You are welcome to research anything you like, but to _add_ to the collection..."

"Carax, can I ask you something?" the Doctor interrupted.

"If you must."

The Doctor looked long and hard at Martha, who looked back wonderingly, worriedly, trustingly.

"Have you ever been in love?"

"W-well," Carax sputtered, surprised. "Yes."

"Wouldn't you have done, or do, _anything_ to keep them safe?"

Carax sighed heavily and looked at the Doctor with tedium. "That's dirty pool, _señor._ "

"I know," the Doctor conceded. "But I'm desperate, and I don't have much time. Please help."

Carax looked at the fear that had appeared in Martha's eyes, and the sincere pleading in the Doctor's.

"I could get in big trouble for this," Carax said. "There could be an inquest."

The Doctor waved off the concern. "Worst case scenario, I'll find you a job in the Welgon Sector, doing archiving for the Harvest Beasts. Their file dimension is a bloody mess. You could really turn that place around!"

"Great. Fantastic," Carax spat.

"Best case scenario, no-one will even notice. Frankly, that's most likely."

Carax crossed his arms over his chest. "You'll testify for me."

"Absolutely," said the Doctor. "If it comes to that. I'll even tell them I put you under duress or something. And one way or the other, I'll come back and remove what I've added, as soon as my target audience has read the piece. Okay? If you'll keep an eye on the guest book for me - well, it's not like you've got a lot of choice, is it? And just let me know... or better yet, _you_ can remove and destroy it yourself, so that you know it's done."

Carax seemed to contemplate for another few moments, and then he let out an exasperated hiss, and said, "Ugh, come on, then. You know, if you hadn't saved my planet six times..."

"I know, I know," the Doctor said. "I'm a pain in the arse. Thanks, Carax."

"But you have to tell me what you've done, once it's done."

"I will. I promise."

* * *

The Doctor and Martha followed Carax down the stairs, through the labyrinthine book shop, and through the swirly purple portal and into the sterile, infinite space that contained volume after volume of unearthly information.

"I'll need the same volume as before," the Doctor said. "3049DQP-Blue-T."

"I thought you wanted to add something new."

"I need to add to an existing volume."

Carax, again, sighed, and went to his podium, calling up the volume selected by the Doctor. Within seconds, the flying machine was headed straight at them, and the Doctor plucked the black and gold box-like book-thing out of the air, the same volume he had used to determine whether or not the Ti'urb knew about the Time Lords' ability to destroy their planet.

"Let's just hope they go back to the same source," the Doctor mused. "Wondering if they missed something."

He called up what seemed to be the information he needed from the volume, and then took the flat device that had been in his hand all along, and pressed it to the volume. The device was the same size, and was black and nearly see-through, like a large piece of film. He used the sonic screwdriver to make the device come alive with scroll after scroll of Gallifreyan text, presumably what he had been working on while she slept, and then, even Martha could see, the text from one melded with text from the other.

"Wow," she mused. "Seriously, what did you just do?"

The Doctor didn't answer immediately. He finished the task, turned off the volume and handed it back to Carax.

"Here you go," he said brightly. "In the same condition I found it, only with a few white lies added."

"Oh. Am I pregnant in the new version?" Martha asked.

The Doctor smirked and nudged her with his elbow.

"What lies?" Carax asked with a hint of panic.

* * *

In the employee break room of the book shop back in Barcelona, the three of them sat, drinking weak tea, while the Doctor regaled Carax with the whole debacle of the Ti'urb, from the very first Sensory Manipulation by Ramechac, right up to the moment when the Doctor had written the "white lies" to add to the volume on Gallifreyan technology.

"Wow," said Carax. "Is this what it's like to live with you?"

"Pretty much."

"Why do you do it?" the bookseller asked Martha.

She smiled. "Do you really not know?"

Carax smiled back. "I think I probably do. But don't count on me ever joining the TARDIS' crew. I am, as it happens, immune to the Doctor's formidable good-looks and charm."

"Lucky you," Martha mused.

"Indeed," he said. "I shall live to see another day, and keep my sanity intact!"

"Anyway," the Doctor interjected. "What I added was a new chapter to the volume that explains exactly how the _undoing_ of their planet by a Time Lord would unfold, using the amped-up sonic screwdriver and the Time Rotor. And, I instructed on how they can stop it. Except, I made the whole thing up."

"Oh. That's brilliant," Martha said.

"Why do you sound surprised?" he wondered with a smirk.

"I don't know," she said. "I guess I'm just thinking that I should've thought of it myself."

"First I added an explanation of what the sonic manipulation would sound like, and how the engagement of the Time Rotor would be readily apparent - I think the Ti'urb will find that it's awfully similar to what they heard when we left their planet. They will think that I detonated my unique combination of screwdriver, Time Rotor and righteous indignation in order to turn their planet to nothingness mush!"

"Very nice," Martha said, smiling, nodding.

"And since the _undoing_ , if it occurred, would occur all across time, the new chapter states that the unravelling will start at the planet's inception and can take anywhere from a few weeks to a few millennia to be complete. But, without time-sensitive tools that can see through the fabric of time and reality, it is impossible to tell how quickly the progression through time is occurring. All such instruments were destroyed with Gallifrey (actually, they weren't because _I am_ such an instrument, but they don't know that, do they?), so they will have to find their own means of determining their planet's prognosis."

"That should keep them good and occupied."

"Yep," he said. "So, the bit about how the destruction could be averted: if a means of time-travel could be found, and the _ground zero_ locale of destruction could be found, I implied that there are ways of reconstituting the matter of the planet, using some of the sonic technology they already have. But it would have to be seriously souped-up and modified in order to work quickly enough to save them, and also not to short out in the hostile environment at the core of planet. This modification would be so time-consuming and expensive, they won't be able to devote any resources to anything else for a long while. All of this, of course, is written, I hope, in a way that is veiled, theoretical, and makes it seem as though it was written several thousand years ago, _not_ necessarily with the Ti'urb in mind."

"What if they come after you for your TARDIS, to achieve the time-travel component?" Carax wondered. "I assume that you implanted ideas of technology and modification that they can achieve themselves, so that they wouldn't try to pirate resources from any other planet. But what about you?"

"I wrote that if the Time Rotor that 'destroyed' them came anywhere near the planet at any point in history, it could cause a major instability in the fabric of the atmosphere and existence of the planet, and could cause premature, instantaneous destruction. So, it's fairly unlikely they'll poke at either one of us again, because the last two times, I've brought the fight to them, and they really won't want that now."

"Aren't there others with vortex manipulators and whatnot?" Martha asked. "Shouldn't we warn Captain Jack?"

"I suppose we should. If they know it's coming, Torchwood can keep out a full-frontal attack by the Ti'urb, no problem."

"They can?"

"Sure," he said. "They are super-concentrated now, and have alien technology. They can fight fire with fire."

"And others, Doctor, don't forget," Carax said. "The Time Agents aren't extinct completely, and there are pockets of vortex all over the universe, and species with the means, for better or for worse, to use them."

"Very true," the Doctor said. "We'll track them down warn them. Should be easy enough - the TARDIS will find them in a snap. We'll even cloak them if they want protection. But by the time the Ti'urb work out who they are and locate, and run through them all..."

"...I'll have died of old age?" Martha asked.

"Quite possibly. And then some."

She said, "Good. It doesn't sound fool-proof, but the only fool-proof solution..."

"...is out of the question," he finished. After a bit of contemplation, he said, as much to himself as anyone else, "They'll be panicking after what they heard when the TARDIS dematerialised. They'll do their research like they always have, and I reckon they'll do whatever they can to save their planet. If their priority is ending my life over saving their own, then they're even stupider than I thought. And they're not really that stupid, in spite of what I've said about them. In fact, they might even work out the game, but it should take them centuries, even, to do that because... well, they're not stupid, but I'm even less stupid."

"No, you're just completely mad," Carax muttered, drinking his tea.

Martha chuckled. "I have to say, this is the most elaborate wild goose chase I've ever heard of."

"Thanks," he said with a smile. "On both counts."

* * *

"Where did we leave off when all of this began?" the Doctor asked, walking up the console room's ramp behind Martha, having said another warm goodbye, and _huge_ thanks to Carax. "Did we have plans? Were we going somewhere?"

"No," she said lightly. "You were just getting back from your prison stint with the priests, and I was just trying to become a doctor."

"Oh yeah, the thirty-four-day absence," the Doctor sighed, looking at her sideways. "You know, if not for the horrible, nearly life-ending violation upon your person (by the Ti'urb, I mean), that would have been just about the perfect morning. And I should know. I got to experience it twice."

"It would," she agreed. "But before we can start over back at zero, we have a bit more business to take care of."

"We do?"

"Yes," she said, quite seriously, though the Doctor could see the whimsy in her eyes. "You still have one more of my five human senses to engage before I'm whole again."

"Oh yes," he said, smiling wickedly. "Touch."

"Touch," she echoed, wrapping her arms around his waist.

"Well, we'd better nip that in the bud before you lapse into a Ti'urb again."

"I'd say so, Doctor." She pulled away from him and began to tug his hand toward the hallway.

"But..." he said, and she stopped. "Before we get to that, Martha, I'm going to reinforce the shield that should keep all forms of non-Time-Lord, and non-human, infiltration out of here."

"Good. Okay," she said, sensing that something else was coming. "Cause, I suppose in theory, until they completely plunge themselves into saving their own arses, they might still try to sic their heat-seeking transformation beam on me, or whatever it was."

"Right. I don't know why they would, but you can't be too careful. They might, indeed, have fairly messed-up priorities. But the point is, when we're in your flat, I can't protect you as well. And certainly when you're there alone..."

"Yeah, I know. We've been through this already."

"And as you said, this thing with the Ti'urb, this solution... it's not fool-proof."

"Nope."

There was a pause while they looked at each other. They seemed to be at a standoff. Then he said, "You would need to keep some sort of London address, so that you don't drop off the grid..."

She _had_ already agreed to come live with him in the TARDIS, she remembered that much from the last hours before her original transformation. Still, she thought about it. She didn't want to give up her flat. She still wanted to have _her life_ outside of the TARDIS... but, of course, with him in it.

But she had already accepted that being with the Doctor brought with it certain inherent dangers. He was both a coveted and _hunted_ man, and as long as she was going to remain close to him, she was hunted as well.

He was worth it, though. Oh, blimey was he worth it! Just for the adventure alone, not to mention all of the squishy, loving human feelings he gave her... in the bedroom and everywhere else. She couldn't imagine _not_ being with him, and he was right, she wasn't safe for long periods of time without him. So...

"I think I understand your reasons for wanting to stay in your own flat," he continued, by way of convincing her. "But you know that your mother is wrong, right? You know that you _are_ still your own person with your own goals, not matter how much you're a part of my life and vice versa. You know that I'm never going to talk you into doing things with your life that you don't want to do. You know..."

"Doctor, stop. I'll said days ago that I'd do it."

"You still mean it?"

"Yeah, I mean it. I'll give up my flat and just live here. I'll use my parents' address for official business."

The Doctor's body seemed to crumple momentarily, then he stood up straight and hugged her. "God, that's a relief," he breathed.

"It's safer, and... well, what can I say? I love you."

"Ah," he said. "Safety and love. What more do you need?"

"Well... as I said," she lilted, pulling away, once again. "I need you to engage my sense of touch, or I may very well fall apart again."

"Right. For the good of your humanity," he said with a semi-serious frown.

"Absolutely," she replied, and this time, successfully pulled him down the hall.

 **End**

* * *

 **Thank you again! (Please leave a review! Even if you never have before!)**


End file.
